A cub named Little Charlie tries to help his mom around the house and garden, "but all he'd done was make a mess," writes Wallace (Little Bean
). No matter—Little Charlie has plenty of ways to prove to Mama that "I'd do anything for you!" In a series of crisply inked, honey-tinted spot illustrations that radiate cozy domesticity, Horse (Little Rabbit Lost
) follows the two as the cub peppers his bedtime preparations with declarations of good intent. Climbing into a nice, hot tub—Horse fills the page with cottony clouds of steam that dwarf the bathing bear—Little Charlie promises he would "swim to the end of the bathtub for you!... And all the way back again!" Wrapped in a towel and perched on his towering mother's shoulders (one of the many appealing ways Horse plays up the comic contrast in his characters' scale), Little Charlie swears, "I'd climb to the top of a really tall tree for you!" Mama wisely acknowledges her son's declarations with a sweet, non-binding "Would you?" but she eventually inquires, "Would you sleep tight for me?... All night long for me?" Snuggled into his warm bed, the exhausted fellow is only too happy to oblige. Younger readers will find much to savor here: the playfulness between mother and son, Mama's calm, warm demeanor and, above all, Little Charlie's confident rhetorical flourishes. Ages 3-7. (Mar.)
