Noah's Ark

"What fool builds a ship on dry land?" Bill Cosby fans know the answer to that one: it's that end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it mariner Noah, who rounded up his family, along with two of everything that walketh, swimeth, and flyeth, and proceeded to tread water in his d.i.y. ark while the Lord caused a great rain to fall on the earth for 40 days and nights. Narrated by Dennis Haysbert (Far From Heaven, TV's 24), this iconographic animated adaptation of writer/illustrator Jerry Pinkney's version of the Old Testament story features lovely if muted watercolor-and-pencil drawings full of interesting detail (such as whales swimming down the deserted streets of underwater towns) that is sometimes a wee bit hard to see in the various crowded tableaux. Still, this is a kid-friendly retelling of one of the most famous episodes from Genesis ("God was not pleased with the people of the earth. They did not care for one another. They did not care for the land that God made. And they did not care for God.") by a Caldecott award-winning author, and would make a solid addition to larger children's video collections. Recommended. Aud: K, E, P. (R. Pitman)