BOUNCING ON THE BED

Combining saccharine visuals with a monotonous ditty, this book follows a child from morning wake-up to evening snuggle-down with no fewer than 13 stanzas modeled on “The Farmer in the Dell” and static illustrations in which the young, chubby-cheeked narrator, whose wide eyes are generally looking off to the side, is awkwardly posed’sometimes floating slightly—against generic indoor and outdoor scenes. His mother looks about ten, his father perhaps five years older. The author and illustrator have done much better work in the past; pass this up in favor of Nancy White Carlstrom’s evergreen Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? (1986). (Picture book. 5-7)