Itsy-Bitsy Babies - Hardcover

A charmer for young children, this picture book introduces a multicultural cast of babies and toddlers engaged in everyday activities such as playing peek-a-boo, splashing through a puddle, and trying on hats. Short and precise, Wild’s rhyming couplets offer plenty of chances for children to chime in with the end words, but many little listeners will prefer just to watch the babies in the engaging pictures. Ormerod’s clean, crayonlike drawings illustrate one or more babies with a few props (a stroller on one page, a drum on another) and create a sense of changing settings with flat, sometimes patterned areas of gentle, chalk-toned colors above and below the horizon line in each picture. Sure to please baby and parent alike, this ends with a couplet that goes, “All the itsy-bitsy babies are full of bliss. All the itsy-bitsy babies want to kiss, kiss, kiss!” Simple, satisfying fare for the very young. Preschool. --Carolyn Phelan