BOOM, BABY, BOOM, BOOM!

Wonderful whimsy and delicious silliness in this read-aloud from Mahy (The Five Sisters, 1996, etc.). Mama puts her baby daughter into the blue highchair of a light-filled room, and presents her with a mouth-watering lunch: bread and honey, sweet apple slices, cheese, carrot, and lettuce. No straightforward baby story, this one: Mama then sits down at her drum kit, for beating her drums makes her feel "at ease with the world." She doesn't know "that the animals were listening at the window," and, "Boom-biddy-boom-biddy-boom-boom-boom!" Closing her eyes in ecstasy, Mama doesn't see the animals trot in. When baby drops the cheese to the floor, the cat eats it up; the bread goes to the dog with the ginger eyebrows; the lettuce to the sheep; and so on, until the whole lunch, to the accompaniment of Mama's paradiddles, is eaten, but none of it by the baby. Mama opens her eyes to the last beat, sighs, hugs and kisses her baby, and gives her a banana, "And the baby ate it all up. Boom-biddy-boom-biddy YUM YUM YUM!" The colors are soft, clear, and friendly, all the animals have personalities, and Mama and her child are as round, pink, and bewitching as all get out. One yummy book. (Picture book. 1-5)