IT’S TIME FOR SCHOOL, STINKY FACE

Even after I Love You, Stinky Face (1997) and I Miss You, Stinky Face (1999), Mother is still providing reassuring answers to her affectionately nicknamed child’s extravagant questions. The theme is school anxiety: What if the bus tires go flat? What if the Principal is a witch? What if the teacher decides to teach armpit noises and the hokey-pokey rather than numbers and letters? And so forth. Mom’s answers are usually as outrageously imaginative as the questions, and young readers’ own fears can’t help but lighten as they get the message right along with Stinky Face that school will be exciting, but not scary—not even if aliens invade the playground to throw slimy green mudpies. Depicting an anything but sedate classroom filled with swirls of school supplies and trailing streams of color, Moore’s busy, close-up scenes invite viewers to dive into the action. This descendant of Margaret Wise Brown’s Runaway Bunny will soothe anxious parents too. (Picture Book. 5-8)