Daisy Knows Best

In this irresistible picture book, just a few words per page describe Daisy, a charming pooch who's a perfect role model for her three pudgy puppies and the chubby human baby who shares a home with them. The text on each spread is a study in subtlety. ""Daisy teaches Delores how to set the table./ Baby learns, too"" reads the caption for a depiction of the mother dog pulling down a laden tablecloth on the left, while the right side shows Baby wreaking havoc on a place setting. Baby even gleefully mimics Daisy's example of relieving herself on a sheet of newspaper. But when Daisy teaches her canine and human charges how to ""fold the laundry"" by strewing it around the backyard, Mommy steps in to provide her own style of pedagogy: ""Now everyone learns to have a bath.../ because mommies know best of all."" Kopper's (Daisy Is a Mommy) neatly framed illustrations are as winning and economical as her text. Daisy, with her long snout, tiny soulful eyes and squooshy postnatal body, is the epitome of doggy maternal love and duty. And the puppies and Baby's physical resemblance to each other is wonderfully comic. Ages 2-4. (Feb.)