BOOKS

Pump up the volumes this month with new stories about a peach pit, pranksters, and a peacemaker. AGES 6 MONTHS TO 2 YEARS what can you find? AROUND THE HOUSE (Dorling Kindersley, $4.95) Crisp and visually seductive, this series delights young eyes with colorful photographs of familiar objects (a bib, a rattle), simple captions, and tiny, elegant household scenes. A- -Michele Landsberg

AGES 2 TO 4 CHARLIE'S ABC Nona Hatay (Hyperion, $10.95) It's a promising premise: a small, cozy alphabet book fashioned from black-and-white photos with the key items (Charlie's dog for ''D'') hand-tinted for eye-grabbing emphasis. But the Day- Glo colors leave everything from the little lad's rocker to his garden looking positively radioactive. C+ -Leonard S. Marcus

NOAH'S ARK Lucy Cousins (Candlewick, $14.95) The animals march into the ark looking as perky and curious as toddlers approaching a playground. Cousins' charmingly toylike creatures are excuse enough for another retelling of the Noah's Ark story. B+ -ML

AGES 4 TO 8 ELEPHANT MOON Bijou Le Tord (Doubleday, $14.95) These days, kids' books about endangered animals are multiplying like rabbits; Le Tord's lyrical elephant homage is one of the better recent entries. Fresh watercolors and a graceful read-aloud text invite readers to ponder why anyone would want to disturb a pachyderm's peaceful perfection. B+ -LSM

THE PERILOUS PIT Orel Odinov Protopopescu; illustrated by Jacqueline Chwast (Green Tiger Press, $14) Katie eats a peach, tosses the pit over her shoulder, and-yikes!-starts a chain of cause-and-effect hilarity in which, among other high jinks, Daredevil Danny is swept out to sea on his skateboard and then rescued by the Navy, the Coast Guard, and the Air Force. The witty, energetic prose is a slick match for the rakishly dramatic paintings. A -ML

AGES 8 TO 12 THE CHRONICLES OF LITTLE NICHOLAS Sempe and Goscinny (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $13) In this pithy European import, tearful squabbles, mismanaged monkeyshines, and famous friendships are the order of the day. New Yorker artist Sempe and Goscinny, the late father of the comic-book hero Asterix, supply the droll doodles to these 19 stories. B+ -LSM

AGES 12 AND UP TALKING PEACE: A vision for the next generation Jimmy Carter (Dutton, $16.99) Former President Carter addresses young people earnestly and often engagingly in this collection of speeches, memoirs, photos, and brief essays on the nature of peacemaking. Carter uses personal examples from his presidency and work in grass-roots groups to encourage youth to get involved in activism for peace, even if only on a schoolyard level. Though the writing doesn't always sparkle, the book offers the kind of serious substance for which idealistic young minds hunger. B+ -ML