Synopses & Reviews
From wriggling chicks to jumpy kangaroos, this hilarious rhyming picture book showcases different kinds of babies, all of which are perfectly, adorably beastly!
Making mischief, having fun
each is precious, every one.
In a knoll, a hole, or nest,
Mamas love
babies best.
In this delightful rhyming read-aloud, author Ellen Jackson and illustrator Brendan Wenzel introduce readers to all sorts of mischievous baby animals and the grown-ups who love them no matter what. Featuring puppies that slobber, kittens who spill, and young gorillas who won't sit still, this book is sure to resonate with beastly babies of all ages and their exasperated moms and dads, too!
Review
"If there’s one thing that parents know, it’s that babies, as much as we may love them, are exhausting. And as this book shows, that’s true in the animals kingdom as well. This wonderfully tongue-in-cheek offering takes readers through some of those babies’ more, well, beastly aspects: they’re loud, they’re messy, and they never stop moving! This amusing readaloud is made more enjoyable by carefully crafted rhymes that delight both in their simplicity (“Puppies slobber / kittens spill / young gorillas can’t sit still”) and their cleverness (“Babies can be smooth or hairy, /quail or whale or dromedary”). The madcap, colorful illustrations are a joy: multimedia animals layer brightly over a white background, and, comically, the animals are all given particularly expressive eyeballs. Children of the human variety will be engaged by mischievous antics of their animal counterparts while parents will find kindred spirits in the depictions of exhausted, exasperated animal parents. Marvelously executed and affectionately crafted, this is a standout in the mothers-and-children canon that promises, like its subjects, to age well." Booklist (Starred Review)
Synopsis
From wriggling chicks to jumpy kangaroos, this hilarious rhyming picture book showcases different kinds of babies, all of which are perfectly, adorably beastly
Making mischief, having fun
each is precious, every one.
In a knoll, a hole, or nest,
Mamas love their babies best.
In this delightful rhyming read-aloud, author Ellen Jackson and illustrator Brendan Wenzel introduce readers to all sorts of mischievous baby animals and the grown-ups who love them no matter what. Featuring puppies that slobber, kittens who spill, and young gorillas who won't sit still, this book is sure to resonate with beastly babies of all ages and their exasperated moms and dads, too "
About the Author
Ellen Jackson is the award-winning author more than fifty-five fiction and nonfiction books for children, including The Mysterious Universe (a Golden Kite honor book) and Earth Morther (which garnered three starred reviews.) She lives with her husband and dog in Santa Barbara, California.
Brendan Wenzel's illustrations often explore the natural world and our relationship to it, and he made his picture book debut with some Bugs by Angela DiTerlizzi. He lives in Coxsackie, New York.