WELCOME, BABY!

A collection of original poems offers cheery readalouds for very young children. Roughly encompassing a child’s first year, they go from a pregnant mom to baby’s first birthday. The pictures are bright and winsome: clear colors and recognizable baby realia—toys, pets, household objects, and parents—inhabit the pages. The babies are of various races and genders and they do what babies do. In “I Like Buttons”: “Buttons here. Buttons there. / Some I push. Some I wear.” There are cell-phone and elevator buttons, and both dad and kid have nice big buttons on their shirts. “Babies in a Stroller” takes kids to the store, to the mailbox, and to the park. There’s counting poems, an alphabet poem, a poem for colors, and a few pretty silly ones, too. It all ends appropriately with a kiss goodnight, “A butterfly / Fluttered by / And gave a kiss / Just like this.” (Picture book/poetry. 2-5)