MAMA ALWAYS COMES HOME

A rather ho-hum production on a familiar theme. Wilson chooses to rhyme her reassuring but pedestrian message, first in a series of animal portraits and then closing with a child whose mom leaves the moppet in dad’s charge. The animals are slightly anthropomorphized: Mama bird wears a flowered kerchief and there’s a quilt on the nest; mama cat sports a polka-dot headscarf, although the polar bears and dolphins do not. Dyer’s colors are as bright and clear as early summer, but the refrain, “Mama always comes home,” gets tiresome. “Mamas everywhere! They leave their little ones, but then . . . / They hurry right back home again.” Yes, we get it, but couldn’t you say it a bit more prettily? (Picture book. 3-7)