THE WICKED BIG TODDLAH

Setting and plot play equal roles here, as Hawkes pays tribute to his home state of Maine in the course of a big sister’s affectionate account of her outsized little brother’s first year or so. Big enough at birth to pick up the narrator in one hand—and to inspire the titular observation from an awed relative—Toddie is transported home on a flatbed truck, gets his diaper changed by crane, pops buckets of blueberries and maple sap like jellybeans and sends guests fleeing at Thanksgiving with a gargantuan “hihowaahya?!!” Towering Bunyan-like over seasonally changing landscapes, Toddie generally shows a cheerful mien, though his typically baby-like antics usually cause the diminutive figures around him to scurry, and in the last scene he’s shown blissfully holding up a parent in each hand for kisses on the cheek. For storytime pairing, Kevin Henkes’s Biggest Boy (1995), illus by Nancy Tafuri, makes a similarly satisfying fantasy for toddlahs and post-toddlahs alike, and Hawkes himself explored the opposite conceit (i.e., gigantic parents) in his illustrations for Lynne Bertrand’s New Hampshire–based Granite Baby (2005). (Picture book. 3-5)