WHILE MAMA HAD A QUICK LITTLE CHAT

While her oblivious mother’s off answering a phone call, an increasingly frantic young Rose finds her bedtime routine interrupted by the successive arrival of a lively formal dress party, a magician in need of an assistant, and a dance band in need of a drummer. Boiger illustrates the burgeoning chaos with a wispy, whimsical elegance reminiscent of Hilary Knight’s art, placing a very small, tousled redhead in gracious, upper-crust surroundings, and adorning the array of partyers in Depression-era evening garb. Hearing Mama hang up at last, Rose firmly ushers the interlopers out the door, and collapses into bed just in time. Composed in loosely rhymed verse to a chorus of “It’s hard to believe, but Rose did ALL that / before Mama had finished her quick little chat,” this reads like an arch amalgam of Eloise and Peggy Rathmann’s 10 Minutes till Bedtime (1998), and is sure to send privileged tykes (and their parents) off to bed with a case of giggles. (Picture book. 6-8)