GOD AND HIS CREATIONS

Williams applies her trademark cartoony style to 11 tales from the Old Testament, rendered in two- or four-page spreads. The illustrations are characteristically busy, tiny panels sharing space with larger tableaux, all surrounded by a Greek chorus of angels (with a lumpy-headed serpent who twines itself around the frame and provides the antiphon). The effect can be hilarious: 40 itty-bitty panels depict Noah’s Ark bobbing on the waves (and receiving an occasional assist from God), while dialogue from within reveals its passengers’ increasing distaste for their hay rations (“Yuck!”). God Himself is depicted as a bald, jolly-looking olive-skinned gentleman with a beard, and while the other characters’ dialogue is colloquial and even at times irreverent, His dialogue is quoted from the New International Version of the Bible. No collection of stories can convey the grand narrative sweep of the Old Testament, and this is no exception. As an unusual and very funny interpretation of some of the key stories in the Western tradition, this offering works beautifully; as an entree to the Bible itself, it is less successful. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-12)