What Does Baby Want?

In this circle-shaped board book from Japanese design team Tupera Tupera, readers are confronted by an increasingly irate baby whose round head fills the page. An unseen mother offers various circular objects (“Aw, you don’t want your tambourine?”) before landing on exactly what her child needs. A page turn, and the book’s facing pages become a pair of bare breasts. Another, and the child is contentedly feeding. A third, and it’s asleep. Soft, collage-style images combine with the narrative’s knowing, informal tone to create real intimacy. At a time when breastfeeding in public can still court reproach, this is a joyful, cheeky, and candid expression of one of the most elemental ways that mothers nurture their children. Up to age 2. (June)