Nine statements outlining children's basic needs and how they often go unmet--e.g., ``Every child needs food to eat. But sometimes there isn't enough to go around.'' The accompanying art depicts Kermit the Frog as narrator and features Sesame Street- style characters in many colors (blue, purple, pink, green). But while the characters are in a cartoon style, they express real emotions, and their settings are composed of realistic elements: a smoke-spewing city where the air is too dirty to breathe, an orderly classroom, an ineffective shelter in a rainstorm, a battlefield with shattered household goods (including a toy bear and the wounded in the background silhouetted against yellow flames). The result is that the concepts are made immediately accessible but not trivialized. Images and motifs from many cultures appear in the illustrations and borders (a painting of Mount Fuji in a well-equipped hospital), implying that plenty and deprivation occur all over the world. A serious book, with appeal for a wide audience, that can do only good. (Picture book. 4-9)
