When Barbara Ross's grandmother set out to teach her children manners a century ago, she reached for a little book called "Goops and How to Be Them." In Ross's father's hands, the book became part of her upbringing. When Ross became a mother in 1966, she introduced her son to it. By the time Ross' grandson was born 3 years ago, that copy of "goops" was pretty goops -- dog-eared and bedraggled from generations of hands. Some grandmothers simply might have figured the book's usefulness was lost. But Ross talked to a copyright lawyer and found the volume was still in the public domain, so she decided to re-release it. The result is a new edition of "Goops and How to Be Them: A Manual of Manners for Polite Children" inoculating many juvenile virtues both by precept and example, by Gelett Burgess (Peanut Butter Publishing, Seattle, Wash., $12.95). Ross, 68, of Battle Ground, Wash., plans a storytime reading and discussion based on the book Saturday at Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Medford. In a telephone interview, Ross says she believes the book is as relevant today as it was more than a century ago when her grandmother, Mary Etta Hotchkiss, moved to Montana from Boston, Mass,. in a covered wagon. Marry Etta taught in a one-room schoolhouse, married a rancher and raised six children, the first being Ross' father, Francis Arthur, who was born in 1901. "There's nothing new," Ross says. "You ksnow manners are never obsolete." Ross made a few changes in the book's design, took out words such as "paucity" and added a glossary. "Goops" uses little rhymes to teach table manners, cleanliness, neatness, courtesy, obedience, generosity, honesty, perseverance and so on. An entry for honesty goes: "Willy broke the window pane, / Willy spilled the ink, / Willy left the water-pipe / Running in the sink. / Did his mother punish him? / No! I'll tell you why. / Willy, he owned up to it, / And didn't tell a lie." Anachronisms do pop up, as in this verse on caution: "When you travel in the street, / Are you cautious and discrete? / Do you look about for horses / When your little brother crosses?" "Goops" warns against interrupting adults ("Don't interrupt your father when he's telling funny jokes. / Don't interrupt your mother when she's entertaining folks"), being a cry baby ("I'm sure that I would rather die / Than have my playmates see me cry") and graffiti ("Have you ever seen the scrawls / on the fences and the walls, / All the horrid little picture and the horrid little names?") Ross says very young children like learning in verse. "If they hear it in rhyme it sticks with them," she says. She says the lessons in "Goops" are always good. "It teaches you to be kind and considerate," she says. "What I hope when I have a reading is that they understand that manners is thinking of the other person. "I'm hoping they'll learn to think of the other person." Ross believes most youngsters are ready for "Goops" by age 3 and don't outgrow the book for five or six years. "The little boys I've lost at age 8." she says. "Little girls are good for maybe a couple more years." The unabridged Random House Dictionary of the English Language defines "goop" as a bad mannered or inconsiderate person, clod or boor. It adds, "expressive coinage apparently first used by Gelett Burgess in his book 'Goops and How to Be Them' (1990)." Ross says her mother used to point to her and say, "You're being a goop!" "When that happened we knew it was time to straighten up." she says. "One hundred years from now, it'll be the same."