Did You mean for the giraffe to look like that or was it an accident?" "Are You really invisible or is that just a trick?" "Instead of letting people die and having to make new ones, why don't You just keep the ones You have now?"

These whimsical questions and others like them were the basis for Stuart Hample and Eric Marshall's book, "Children's Letters to God," a 1966 collection of kids' actual missives to the Almighty that has sold some 1.3 million copies. Hample, David Evans and Douglas J. Cohen (No Way to Treat a Lady) premiere their new musical adaptation, Children's Letters to God, Dec. 1-15 at Lyric Stage in Irving, TX.

Cohen is the most theatrically known of the creative trio — his musicals include composing the score to the James Fennimore Cooper musical Glimmerglass, doing double duty (music and lyrics) on The Big Time and triple duty (book, music and lyrics) on No Way to Treat a Lady. Hample is the author-compiler of "All the Sincerity in Hollywood...," "The Silly Book" and "My Darling Mao: Letters from Mothers to Their Famous Offspring."

Candace Evans directs Children's Letters to God with musical direction by Gary Okeson. Kate Bristol, Clay Hudson, Travis McClung, Lindsay Sawyer and J.C. Schuster make up the five-child cast.

Tickets are $22-$20. The Irving Arts Center's Dupree Theater is located at 3333 North MacArthur Bouldevard. For reservations, call (972) 252-2787. — By Christine Ehren