Like its predecessors in the Urban Babies Wear Black series, this outing, although ostensibly aimed at one-to-three–year-olds, offers very little for its target audience but lots for grown-ups. Page after page of text far beyond babies’ conceptual ken (“Jet-set babies have an entourage”) are paired with Dion’s sophisticated images, which are characterized by muted colors and busy patterns that fly in the face of research into brain and vision development. There’s lots of humor on hand for the adult: “Jet-set babies speak foreign languages” depicts a black baby saying, “gagagooGOO” to a white baby who replies, “GAgagoogoo”—all in hand-drawn letters that further confuse the composition. Smug and irritating. (adult)
