Sammy Streetsinger ¦ Snow White in New York

The Perils of Theatrical Life! Here are two picture books that could easily sit on secondary shelves. Keeping's familiar draughtsmanship wittily recounts the bitter-sweet fable of the transient rise to stardom of street-musician, Sammy, his attendant exploitation, numbing disillusion and final return to the subway. It's a sad picture book, especially where the lad's life's work is reduced to a tiny video pack like a tombstone on an arid landscape.

Snow White fares marginally better in the Jazz Age. Now the traditional dwarves become jazzmen in a band, with whom the heroine achieves stardom to the chagrin of her wicked step-mother. She's the self-styled Queen of New York, reader of the 'New York Mirror', whose reporter plays Prince Charming and marries the heroine when the poisoned cocktail cherry is dislodged from her throat. Fiona French won a Kate Greenaway Medal for this witty, visually stimulating update, full of menacing images counterbalanced by dazzling lights.