SOMETIMES MAMA AND PAPA FIGHT

Maybe there's something to be said for facing up, in a book, to the fact that parents fight: for getting out into the open, that is, something that only siblings--like the little-boy narrator and his sister here--are apt to talk about. But facing up to the fighting--and the corollary that parents, as well as children, ""hate it""--is about all that's accomplished here. Kevin and sister Millicent try thinking about other, nicer things and drowning out the sound by singing; they try thinking about the times ""Mama and Papa like each other and love each other,"" and the tender things they do. And maybe kids could use those reminders too--but overall this seems a rather bald, unimaginative object-lesson, best suited to reminding parents of very young children of the pain their flare-ups cause.