THE GREAT ADVENTURE OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

An ebullient collaboration between the fine historian whose many books include Where Do You Think You're Going, Christopher Columbus? (1981) and one of America's favorite illustrators. Fritz provides a brief, fact-filled text, printed on both sides of a jacket-style flap hinged at the right of each spread, and so amusingly perky that it holds its own even in the presence of the extraordinary pop-up illustrations. DePaola's art, in sumptuous colors—the Spanish court's royal reds and purples, the Caribbean's deep turquoise and greens, and imagination's lustrous gold, spilling into the background for the text—is truly handsome; set off by the elaborate three-dimensional paper engineering, it's a delight. As a dividend, there's a flap or pull tab to be found on almost every spread. Columbus's darker side is omitted (after all, this is a picture book); on the other hand, his accomplishments are not exaggerated with mock heroics. A winner. (Biography/Picture book. 5-9)