CRACKED CORN AND SNOW ICE CREAM

Cracked Corn And Snow Ice Cream (64 pp. $18.00; Sept. 1997; 0-15- 227250-X): An elegantly designed collection of birthdates, folk wisdom, garden tips, recipes, old photos, and family reminiscences that conjure up country life and bygone times. To anecdotes from their oldest Iowa, Wisconsin, and Kansas relatives, dubbed ``The Voices,'' Willard and Dyer add items ``Worth Knowing,'' from historical curiosities to a list of edible flowers, food ``Worth Cooking,'' a scattering of ``Dates and Festivals,'' plus an ongoing ``Farmer's Calendar,'' decorated with epigrams, garlands of verse, small, sharp black-and-white photos, carefully lettered titles, and tiny, exact depictions of flowers, farm animals, and people in rustic dress. Casual browsers drawn by the pictures' visual appeal or the play of colors on the page will linger to savor the homespun recollections. (Anthology. 9-12)