DOWN IN THE DAISIES

With a rhyme constructed along the lines of “Over in the Meadow” and big, very simple paintings, Coats takes toddlers and post-toddlers on a tour of animal families in various climes. From a mother seal and her one pup, “ ‘Dive!’ Says the mother / so they both dive together” to a “croaking mother frog” and her ten “squirmy wormy tadpoles” each group’s activity takes place in “stormy stormy weather” or “rainy rainy weather,” etc. There are a few glitches in this import’s language, including references to a “cold and draughty house” and a clan of kittens “all along the strawstacks”—but children will enjoy the text’s pleasing sonority, and crowd around at the author’s invitation to “Count the mums and babies up / In every kind of weather!” (Picture book. 3-5)