EVERY DAY

In self-assured, cadenced prose, a little boy details his usual routine: ``This is the way I eat my breakfast and drink my milk and clean my place. I do it every day.'' Among other things, ``This is the way I go to the potty'' (``Just a minute, please,'' while, discreetly, the illustration depicts the family dog waiting earnestly outside the bathroom door). The book's last third concerns exceptions to this orderly round: it rains, Dad's late for work, the milk spills, and ``I didn't quite make it to the potty,'' but—as it's philosophically implied in the last line—mishaps are normal, too, though ``I'm glad those things don't happen every day.'' The author's perceptive cartoon-style illustrations reinforce the sense of an accepting family that knows how to weather minor vicissitudes cheerfully. Disarmingly direct. (Picture book. 2-5)