THE OLD WOMAN AND HER PIG

Where there's a need for a less ferocious version of Joseph Jacobs's cumulative tale, this is a far better choice that Kimmel's awkward travesty (1992). Not illogically, the butcher becomes a farmer who's asked to ``yoke'' the ox, not ``kill'' him; otherwise, the changes here amount to softening verbs: ``beat'' becomes ``poke,'' ``quench'' becomes ``douse'' (a subtlety that will escape most preschoolers), the rope is to ``trip'' the farmer rather than ``hang'' him, and so on. Litzinger preserves Jacobs's wonderful rhythmical cadence and provides congenial little illustrations that focus more on solving the old woman's problem than on the threatened mayhem along the way. They don't have the lively action, humor, or panache of Paul Galdone's (1960, o.p.); nonetheless, pleasant. (Picture book. 2-7)