Stormy seascapes and rivers of fire

Adaptations and re-tellings are useful as a way of introducing children to great books. The word "classic" is a turn-off to the young and best avoided, but masterpieces are endlessly resilient. Homer is complex and hard to follow in any literal translation, but in The Story of Odysseus (Frances Lincoln, pounds 14.99), Rosemary Sutcliff repeats the success of her Iliad, presenting this mighty adventure in beautifully simple and elegant prose, highlighting the main episodes - visit to the Cyclops, the Island of the Dead, Circe - without sacrificing the narrative flow. Alan Lee's majestic illustrations conjour up stormy seascapes, misty mountains and ferocious monsters - colours are hypnotic, deep-sea blues, greys and greens.

Arthurian legend is action-packed and awe-inspiring, all battles, romance and grandeur, and a simple introduction is best as a taster. Arthur and Excalibur retold by Angelika Lukesch (MacDonald, pounds 8.99) will entice those to whom this magical world appeals to move on to fuller versions.

Aesop's Fables, ancient and familiar, still appeal to each new generation of children. Their pithiness and brevity remind one of clever jokes and mottos; they are clear and very satisfying. My 10-year-old reads sparingly, but finds them delightful and the perfect length - they are, she says, "neat". But early translations are too ponderous for the young and a new version by Jacqueline Morley (MacDonald, pounds 12.99) is plain, pleasing and accessible, without any of the essential elegance and formality being lost, though the pictures are somewhat crudeand blandly coloured.

Expanding Aesop rarely works. Jan Brett tricks out Town Mouse, Country Mouse (Hamish Hamilton, pounds 9.99) with unnecessary embellishments, thereby diluting the impact of Aesop's half-page which children can ornament from their own imaginations very well. Buy this for the marvellous pictures crammed with nooks and crannies, parlours and larders, hedges and ditches.

The particular nursery rhyme edition the child has will haunt memory and imagination for life. The first choice is between old-fashioned or jolly modern illustrations. Nursery rhyme worlds are part fantasy, part idealised history, part recognisable and everyday, and the best illustrators capture all this, as did Harold Jones in the classic Lavender's Blue, and Nicola Bayley in glowing detail decades later. Neither has been bettered. Nor, in his own, curious way, has Randolph Caldecott, though it is a pity his classic illustrations for Ride a Cock Horse (Everyman, pounds 8.99) have been reproduced hazily. But the line-drawings are crisp and the style perfect if nursery rhymes are to be associated with fat farmers, sprigged milkmaids and periwigged gentlemen. These are not first, short nursery rhymes, but longer ballads (such as "The House That Jack Built") smashing to read aloud for quaint, perspicacious children of five-plus, if there are any such left.

Younger siblings will find an old-fashioned fantasy world created by Elizabeth Harbour for her First Book of Nursery Rhymes (Viking, pounds 9.99) more suitable. She has a delightful, witty visual style, her line flows gracefully but the printing has laid a disappointing veil over her already pale pictures.

Michael Rosen's Walking the Bridge of Your Nose (Kingfisher, pounds 8.99) builds on children's early love of rhythm and repetition by presenting words as playthings, to be pulled about, stretched, turned inside-out. The nonsense, aliteration and puns in this glorious, free-wheeling book will delight children from two upwards. It can't be too enthusiastically recommended. Exuberant, paint-bright pictures by Chloe Cheese.

Fairytales are about wish-fulfilment. But there is no essential connection between them and children, as Tolkein pointed out, and often the taste for these stern and gruesome tales increases in adulthood. They are perfect stories, conjuring up magical, timeless worlds through which moral precepts can be assimilated without pain - the darkness threatens, but the sunlit meadow always holds back the encroachments of the terrifying forest. Russian Fairy Tales, retold by Gillian Avery (Everyman, pounds 8.99), are not over-familiar though they may be nightmare-inducing to susceptible children. A wildly romantic world of fierce Tsars, talking bears and rivers of fire, blood- curdling and wonderful.

In complete contrast, Phillida Gili's ribbon-tied pop-up The Sleeping Beauty (Doubleday, pounds 9.99) is all charm and sweetness with nice, traditional paperwork - in the best spread, the forest trees part to reveal a glimpse of silvery castle turrets. A pretty introduction to an old favourite.