MOMMIES SAY SHHH!

Animal sounds abound, and brightly clad, barefoot boys and girls frolic with friendly livestock in one of the author’s simpler salutes to her farmstead childhood. “Birds say cheep cheep cheep. Squirrels say chee, chee, chee. Bunnies say nothing at all.” Polacco’s pictures, a colorful and cozily familiar mix of marker, paint, pencil, and pastel, play perfectly with teeter-tottering pigs and muffler-wearing moo-cows making merry in the barnyard. In a penultimate spread that may put readers in mind of the musicians of Bremen, the animals come together in a chorus of clucks, honks, quacks, moos, ma-a-a-s, and meows, and with a well-timed final page-turn, are hushed by a baby-rocking Mommy who says “shhh, shhh, shhh.” (“And bunnies say nothing at all.”) Big and ebullient, inviting participation and prediction, this one’s a natural for storytime. (Picture book. 3-5)