TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE: THE COLOSSAL BOOK OF URBAN LEGENDS

A book debunking urban legends sounds, at first, like a Nickelodeon expose called Santa Claus: Fact or Fiction? Sure, there are plenty of beans to be spilt...but c'mon, the fun is in buying the fraud wholesale. Still, this 480-page doorstop compendium is anything but a killjoy. In addition to such shopworn ''friend-of-a-friend'' campfire tales as Mikey's Pop Rocks demise and the baby gator that grew into a sewer-dwelling man-eater, Brunvald includes plenty of new -- and, frankly, better -- myths here. Sure to be instant classics are a hilarious alleged Eddie Murphy elevator incident and one in which a babysitter on LSD mistakes a tyke for a turkey and puts it in the oven. Bon appetit! A-