Kids' Books That Never Grow Old

But the New York Review is publishing reissues more systematically. "I very much admire what they're doing," Roxburgh says.

The history of the Children's Collection, Frank explains, can be traced back to the late 1980s, when one of the New York Review's founders, Jason Epstein, had an idea for a mail-order venture called the Reader's Catalog -- "a sort of giant annotated Sears Catalog of the 40,000 best books in print."

Between the first and second editions of the Reader's Catalog, says New York Review publisher Rea Hederman, an astonishing 15,000 of those 40,000 books went out of print. A light bulb flashed on. "We began to think about how many books we admired we would like to see back in print," Hederman says.

This led to the New York Review Classics line of reissued adult literature -- which Edwin Frank also edits -- and eventually to the parallel series for children. Both series were launched without outside funding; the modest investments necessary came from the magazine's profits.

"It's essentially always been self-supporting," Hederman says of the Review's book-publishing arm.

Being attached to an established literary property helped in other ways, too. For one thing, there was a built-in audience of likely buyers who could be reached through ads in the magazine. For another, the name "New York Review" was already a powerful brand.

The Children's Collection has been further branded through the publishing choices the Review has made. Unlike the adult books, which are published in paperback, the children's reissues are hardcovers with distinctive red cloth spines. The parents and grandparents who'll be buying most of them, Frank says, tend to value quality and permanence.

And, like him, they also value things they've known and loved.

One of the best-selling children's titles has been "D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths," which, like "Wee Gillis," was a personal favorite of Frank's. As a boy, he remembers loving the myths themselves, which seemed far more exotic than their Greek counterparts, along with the straightforward way the d'Aulaires -- a husband-and-wife team -- narrated them. He also loved what novelist Michael Chabon, in his preface to the new edition, calls the "spectacular and quirky illustrations."

Another Frank discovery was the Jenny the cat series. When his daughter was young, he picked up "Jenny's Birthday Book," by Esther Averill, in Manhattan's Bank Street Bookstore. "My daughter liked it, my wife liked it, we all read it again and again without tiring of it," he says. In the front of the book, he saw a list of the other titles in the series, but he couldn't find them anywhere.

It pays to be the czar of a publishing empire, even a small one -- because you get to do something when life frustrates you like that.

Other recommendations came from friends and colleagues. One was T.H. White's "Mistress Masham's Repose."

" 'Mistress Masham' is a wonderful book," Frank says, but while he knew White's "The Once and Future King," he'd never heard of this one. The plot (which is really the least of it, given White's erudite and hilarious prose) involves a 10-year-old orphan named Maria who lives on a vast, run-down estate with a greedy, spiteful governess who's out to defraud her of her inheritance.

When Maria discovers a colony of Lilliputians on the property . . .

Well, it's far too complicated to explain. But thanks to the passionate fans who made the world a better place by suggesting it to the New York Review, you can pick up a copy and see for yourself.