Naked!

“Naked!” It’s fun to say and fun to be, as the team behind 2012’s I’m Bored proves with this tribute to the (temporarily) clothes-free life. “I’m naked!” shouts Black’s impish narrator fresh from the bath his private parts artfully concealed by page edges, his bare feet, and a sheet of paper (“I could go to school naked”). Add a cape and cookies, and life can’t get much better—well, until the shivers set in, and then dragon PJs become the sensible choice (“The cape stays on,” the boy proclaims, admiring himself in the mirror. “Awesome”). Ohi, working in more fully (ahem) fleshed out scenes than in I’m Bored, is an inventive, irreverent portraitist of domestic life—readers won’t be able to anticipate where her comic sense of composition will take them next (spoiler: one perspective is a bird’s-eye view of a naked Hokey Pokey, complete with dance steps diagram). Certain to inspire gleeful mimicry—not that some kids need much of an excuse to ditch their duds. Ages 4–8. [em]Author’s agent: Barry Goldblatt, Barry Goldblatt Literary. Illustrator’s agent: Ginger Knowlton, Curtis Brown. (May) [/em]