MAMA’S COMING HOME

The author of Night Worker (2000, illustrated by Georg Hallensleben) delineates another unconventional, if not necessarily uncommon, domestic arrangement. While Mom closes up shop and heads wearily for the subway, Dad puts on an apron, feeds dog and baby, then prepares dinner (pizza, but still) while chivvying two older children to pick up their toys and set the table. Using a muted palette and drawing in a simple, childlike style, Bogacki (The Turtle and the Hippopotamus, p. 561, etc.) alternates domestic scenes with views of city streets and crowds of commuters; the parallel plotlines converge at last at a dinner table surrounded by smiling faces. Papa’s bright blue hair sounds an odd visual note, and Banks, usually careful with words, first conjures a sidewalk that “throbs with footsteps,” then later describes the baby’s legs as “churning like a riverboat”—forced images at best. Still, children with stay-at-home fathers will see a reflection of their own family patterns and rhythms here, and to many readers the idea that parental roles are not fixed may come as a revelation. (Picture book. 6-8)