MAX AND RUBY'S FIRST GREEK MYTH

When Ruby catches Max touching her jewelry box despite her sign (``No! This means you!''), she reads him ``a story about sneaking and peeking'': Pandora (Max in ancient dress), disobeying orders, peeks into her mother's jewelry box, letting loose ``a hundred twister bees, a slew of fire ants...''; last comes not Hope but a spider, which eats the insects—to the last ``Mexican jumping weevil''—before retiring to the box. When Mother returns, she's so pleased that Pandora seems to have been good that she lets her wear her necklace (shown in Wells's engagingly comic illustrations as a string of golden bugs), while she dons her emerald spider pin. True to his usual form, Max misses the point of his sister's tale; he may know that her sign says ``No,'' but when Ruby asks who it means, he comes up with a cheerfully innocent ``You!'' A novel, entertaining introduction to the myth; better yet, another delightful episode in the saga of this irrepressible bunny. (Picture book. 4-8)