ZA-ZA'S BABY BROTHER

Cousins (Noah's Ark, 1993, etc.) plows a well-worked plot: Za-Za is not happy that the new baby takes so much of his parents' attention, but after playing alone with her new brother and helping put him to bed, Za-Za learns that there's still time for hugs and a bedtime story. As in her Maisy books, Cousins's hand-lettered text, single-color backgrounds and very simple, thick-lined animal figures have an appealing, almost homemade air that matches the storyline's utter simplicity. She is less interested in consistency of time or scale (not to mention the issue of unsupervised play) than in her message of reassurance, but then, so are the young siblings for whom this is intended. A delight right down to the endpapers.