My Day, Your Day

Ballard (Tonight and Tomorrow) effectively and inventively draws parallels between the routines of parent and child in this upbeat picture book. ""My day is at day care. Your day is at work,"" begins a preschooler narrator on the opening page. ""Bye-bye. See you later."" What follows are 10 pairs of corresponding--but not identical--activities of various children at day care and their parents at their jobs. To add some texture to the straightforward premise, Ballard shows the children in single-page, full-bleed scenes on the left, and depicts the adult counterpart (with a nearly identical likeness to the child) in three-panel scenes, comic book-style. While life at day care is reassuringly familiar (building blocks, circle time, lunch), Ballard finds some ingenious vocational pairings: for ""circle time,"" an executive mommy readies for a meeting, greets the participants and then holds forth at a round table. A happy calm pervades both the succinct text and warmly hued watercolor and ink drawings, and parents and children reunite in a final scene. Ages 4-up. (Feb.)