PENNY LOVES PINK

Penny proclaims her love for all things pink through most of this cotton-candy–sweet tale. She loves pink clothes, pink sunglasses, pink food, her pink potty and pink flowers. The illustrations are every imaginable shade of pink. Gradually, however, some blue elements are introduced, including a blue balloon and blue baby clothes. Penny remains blissfully unaware of the blue disturbance until, on a two-page spread entirely in blue, her parents announce the arrival of her new baby brother. Penny is initially unhappy about this intrusion, but once she meets Parker, she decides that she loves him even more than she loves pink. Any usefulness as a new-sibling story is undermined by its uncritical bifurcation of the world into pink/girls and blue/boys. For better new-sibling books, try There’s Going to Be a Baby, by John Burningham and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, or Pecan Pie Baby, by Jacqueline Woodson and illustrated by Sophie Blackall (both 2010), instead. To open up a girl’s sense of possibility, get Not All Princesses Dress in Pink, by Jane Yolen and Heidi E.Y. Stemple and illustrated by Sophie Lanquetin (2010). (Picture book. 3-6)