With a mixture of pride, affection, and just an occasional saving flash of irritation, Alfie rattles on about his relationship with his adorable, adoring, younger sibling. Little Annie Rose loves games of peek-a-boo, sometimes prefers playing with her older brother’s friends and toys over her own, still sleeps in a crib, and may not be quite up to helping Dad build sandcastles on the beach, but makes “quite good” sand pies. Viewed at child’s-eye level, the naturalistically painted pair is seen at home and away, alone and with friends, happily absorbed in living their lives. Though Annie Rose has a generally sunny disposition, when she does fall into a bad mood, “I’m the only person who can cheer her up,” Alfie avers, “because she’s my little sister, and I’m her big brother, and we’ll go on being that forever . . . even until we’re grown up.” Conveying a warm feeling of domestic harmony, and modeling an ideal but not unrealistic closeness, this will please fans of Frieda Wishinsky’s Oonga Boonga (reissued 1998, with illus by Carol Thompson), Marc Brown’s tales of Arthur and D.W., and the like. (Picture book. 5-7)
