Editorial Reviews
From School Library Journal
PreS. This crackerjack charmer from the team who created 17 Kings and 42 Elephants (Dial, 1987) will delight toddlers with its silliness, animal sounds, and “boom! boom! boom!” Baby throws the tasty lunch Mama has made for her onto the floor while Mama is practicing on her drums. Various animals sneak into the house and eat the food to the rhythm of the drums. A black-faced sheep chews lettuce to the beat of “Boom-biddy-boom-biddy BAA-BAA-BAA!” A cow chomps on a carrot: “Boom-biddy-boom-biddy MOO-MOO-MOO!” This one is a winner, from the blissful mother with the unusual hobby to the chubby-faced baby to the farm animals lurking by the back door. MacCarthy’s whimsical illustrations are a perfect blend of pastel hues and intense colors. They actively inhabit each page and propel the story to its loving conclusion.?Ann Cook, Winter Park Public Library, FL
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Ages 3^-5. A group of animals watches through the window as Mama puts her little one in the high chair and piles the tray full of food: bread and honey, lettuce leaves, apple slices, cheese, and a carrot. Mama sits down at her drum set, closes her eyes, and blissfully beats away, while one by one, the animals come in and share the cheerful toddler’s feast. The beat of the drums provides an effective refrain for the repetitive actions and words that add to the story’s appeal. In the artwork, softly shaded and warmly colored forms echo the roundness of the child’s face and the liveliness of the story’s action. Young children will especially enjoy being in on Baby’s secret: she sees what her mother misses. True, it’s not exactly logical that Mama could miss a cow sneaking past her in the kitchen, but let’s call that poetic license. Carolyn Phelan
From Kirkus Reviews
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) — Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
Mahy’s lighthearted prose, punctuated by Mama’s “boom-biddy-booms,” is hard to resist reading aloud. Patricia MacCarthy’s droll colored-pencil illustrations, with their tight, skewed perspective and bright bold shapes, echo the percussive sound of the “diddy-dum-drums.”
Ages 1 to 5. — The New York Times Book Review, Jon Agee
Ages 1 to 5. — The New York Times Book Review, Jon Agee
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