Nonfiction: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Real World

After the thickets of possible worlds and fairy tales, fictive and ephemeral, it’s reassuring to find that there is no place like home: the real world, a clearing as eye-opening as any fantasy and as thought-provoking as any fictional musing. There are as many versions of the “real” world and as many intriguing journeys--to the site of an archeological dig, to the inside of a human uterus (via microphotography) at the moment of conception, to the forest floor and its web of earthbound colonies--as there are airborne trips through fiction’s many planes.

But before the journey begins, a signpost: Don’t Bore Your Children. Adults often forget this. Children are a volatile audience; they will creep, crawl, sneak or otherwise slip away at any moment. The samples below are only a peek at the rich possibilities of the genre.

If it’s true that to know people, you must walk a mile in their shoes, then A WORLD OF SHOES by Della Rowland, illustrated by Frank Riccio, with border decorations by Sumo (Contemporary/Calico Books: $8.95; 23 pp.) is an unpretentious, international tour of understanding. Children of various countries are shown in footwear figuratively (if not literally) associated with those lands: wooden sandals in Japan, rugby shoes in England, cowboy boots in the United States (“made for the saddle” but definitely “not for walking”), and ballet shoes in the Soviet Union.

For those--like the cowboy--who prefer to ride, ONCE UPON A HORSE by Suzanne Jurmain (Lothrop: $17.95; 176 pp.) is a readable, comprehensive history of the horse, and how horses shaped human history. Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and Napoleon would not have been global conquerors had they been mere walking mortals. This sterling account is accompanied by intriguing illustrations and reproductions. Included is the status of the horse in both primitive and high cultures, from the cave drawings at Lascaux to the classic English paintings of George Stubbs. Jurmain saddles up with a mix of myth and history, better taken at a trot than at a full gallop: The pages are dense with information. For the budding equestrian wishing for a real, live horse for the holidays, this book will possibly disappoint. Others, however, will linger over its pages; it’s the best horse book to come down the pike in some time.

Since the horse and its progeny (first the stagecoach, then its descendants, Ford and Edsel) opened up travel around the world, places like London just don’t seem so far away anymore. THE INSIDE-OUTSIDE BOOK OF LONDON by Roxie Munro (E. P. Dutton: $13.95) gives readers the city of Dickens and Big Ben from an uncommon, if not downright unusual point-of-view--the city is revealed in double and triple sets of perspectives: A view of , then from , London Bridge opens the book. The Houses of Parliament, in all their stately grace, are espied first from a distance, then from the balcony overlooking the floor where so many oracular battles have been waged. Meticulous attention to detail is brought to double-decker buses, the inside and outside of an umbrella shop, and eeriest of all, the view from behind a knight’s mask in the tower of London. Munro’s architectural etchings demonstrate her artist’s eye for the various points of interest and declares them open to the public.

Should one find that travel among human social colonies doesn’t suit, there is always the animal kingdom to look to for an afternoon stint into the natural world. Delightful shocks underscore the happy batiked canvases of Patricia MacCarthy’s lissome ANIMALS GALORE! (Dial: $11.95)--think of a child’s discovery that “a murder of crows” describes a bunch of birds. A “company of parrots” soars over a prancing “troop of monkeys”; other pages might reveal “a clowder of cats” or “a knot of toads.” Brilliant, diaphanous colors and craft meld with an invisible lesson on collective nouns, whose only, minor, flaw is the graceless title.

Finally, there is the quietest voyage of all, revealing more about variety and interconnections in the structure of the real world than any far-flung journey. In their own neighborhood, children will find that for some creatures, a bug is as good as a Big Mac when it comes to fast food. BUGS FOR DINNER? queries the title of Sam and Beryl Epstein’s book, illustrated by Walter Gaffney-Kessell (Macmillan: $12.95; 48 pp.), just the kind of “gross” idea that every child relishes, and aptly subtitled “The Eating Habits of Neighborhood Creatures.” The excellent information in this slightly text-bookish format is a combination of provocative questions and gourmet facts; for a wasp stuns its prey and leaves it near the eggs, so that its kids will have fresh flesh when they hatch. And expect children to look at all adults askance when they read about preying mantises eating their mates. Mating-for-life takes on a whole new dimension, and so, with this entertaining book, do familiar surroundings--the “social stomach” for some nearly invisible neighbors.

In these books are worlds that may be gazed at from afar, observed through a microscope, galloped past on a horse, ridden past on a bicycle or viewed from the top of a tourist bus. If it’s true that, as Alexander Pope says, “Men must walk at least before they dance,” then children who go wayfaring on the roads of nonfiction are well on their way to the ball.