The initial, predictable rhymes of this uneven picture book promise a raindrops-on-roses panoply of favorite baby things: "Baby books and baby toys/ for baby girls and baby boys." While Charlip's (Sleepytime Rhyme) quiet text refers only to babies, the increasingly complex watercolor paintings reassuringly combine babies with their caregivers. Each baby flower, with a baby-faced center, is enveloped in the comforting green leaves of a flower adult. Even inanimate objects come with caregivers—two rainbows, two houses, two ring-toss toys. But the playful quality in the illustrations of "baby bunnies, puppies, kittens,/ all in funny hats and mittens," with the animals silhouetted against a clean white background, gives way to more visually scattered and enigmatic paintings as the book progresses. For instance, Charlip surrounds the outlines of empty baby and adult beds with the cluttered images of things seen on previous pages; two spreads later, as the text exhorts the reader to "Go to sleep, my little one./ Sleep and dream now, day is done," the beds surrealistically transform into a sleeping adult and a baby whose egg-shaped body contains these images once again. Unfortunately, Charlip's complicated visual representation of dreaming may be more confusing than comforting to young children; the volume starts off stronger than it finishes. All ages. (Dec.)
