NOAH

In a simple, invitingly cadenced retelling beginning, ``Here is Noah with grace in his eyes,/Here are his sons/right by his side,'' Gauch adheres closely to the events described in the Bible, from God's command to Noah to build an ark to his family's planting a garden after the animals have finally left them ``happily alone.'' Green, whose debut in Lauture's Father and Son (1992) was widely praised, draws again on his Gullah heritage for paintings in lustrous saturated colors. He depicts most of the humans as black (though one son's wife has blue eyes), and makes creative use of the text's reiterated ``two by two'' in his handsome compositions. Proof positive that, when it comes to books about Noah, there is always ``room for one more.'' (Picture book. 3-8)