LITTLE LIONS

A mother mountain lion basks in the sun while her roly-poly kits play on the rock ledge beside her. For a simple poem about her, Arnosky (Watching Water Birds, p. 1384, etc.) has created pictures that use warm golds and tawny wheat tones and that contrast the strong muscles of the mother with the relaxed, tumbling bodies of her young. Close-up drawings invite readers to compare the size of kitten to cat; one kitten can easily be capped in its mother's huge paw. At times the pictures are static, e.g., a kitten somersaulting down the mother's hip looks stiff. Still, toddlers will cozy up to these pictures, which do not idealize wild creatures as much as present them for observation in terms that make sense to the very young. (Picture book. 2-6)