Colorful pictures, lively tales; The Night It Rained Pancakes, by Mirra Ginsburg. New York: Greenwillow. $5.95.

Where does Mirra Ginsburg find the delightful folktales she is so good at adapting for young readers? Again, she gives us an amusing story, this time from a Russian lore. It concerns two brothers, Ivan and Stephan, and the pot of gold Ivan finds. Ivan, being more clever than his brother, must come up with a way to keep the gold from the lord of the manor. What does this have to do with it raining pancakes at night? That is part of the clever answer Ivan comes up with in this book for age 6-9. Douglas Florian's illustrations add hilarity to this amusing tale.