MOMMY, PICK ME UP

This French import delivers a child’s litany of requests to Mommy but doesn’t offer much of a story.

Bravi’s eye-catching art employs vibrant hues and thick, black outlines that echo the bold lettering in the speech-balloon text. Although the first spread shows the child trying to fix breakfast alone (“MOMMY?! THERE’S NO MORE CEREAL”), subsequent ones do not obviously follow the chronology of a typical day as the child calls out, time and again, for Mommy. She doesn’t appear in the illustrations until the ninth spread, and then only as a lap on which the child wishes to sit (the rest of her body is obscured by the speech-balloon request). And although she appears twice more in response to other requests, she never speaks. Daddy, however, does: “YES!” he responds after being called twice. The punch line is that this child only calls on Daddy this one time in order to ask, “Where’s Mommy?” It’s a tired end to a wearying text that seems hard-pressed to engage a child reader or to avoid alienating mommies. Both parents and child are white.

Not one to pick up.