WELCOME TO YOUR WORLD, BABY

Celeb-cum-mom-cum-children’s author Shields offers up to shelves glutted with new-sibling celebrations a relentlessly cheery big sister’s promises of happy times together. “Now that you are here, we can have tea parties … / and super secret sleepovers.” Doerrfeld’s retro pastel illustrations feature two button-nosed tykes, the younger aging over the course of the book from infancy to preschool-age, although this progression is uneven, and her older sister doesn’t seem to grow at all. Of greater moment than this quibble, however, is the almost total lack of nuance in the presentation: It’s the (literally) rosy-hued projection of an idealized relationship rather than an honest acknowledgment of the snarl of emotions that wraps around siblings in real life. This will almost certainly sell like proverbial hotcakes thanks to its author’s marquee value; thank goodness new siblings and their parents have such emotionally truthful works as the classic Peter’s Chair (Keats, 1967) and Julius, the Baby of the World (Henkes, 1990) and the new Robie H. Harris-Michael Emberley collaboration, Mail Harry to the Moon (2008), waiting when reality sinks in. (Picture book. 3-8)