A Summery Saturday Morning

With bustling watercolors and catchy cadences borrowed from ""This is the way we wash our clothes,"" New Zealanders Mahy (Boom, Baby, Boom, Boom!) and Young (Adam Pig's Everything Fun Book) offer a buoyant story of a walk to the seaside that takes some unexpected turns. The multiethnic party consists of four children and an adult, plus two dogs. The canines get up to high jinks as they chase first a cat, then a boy on a ""rattly"" bike (""Chasing things is what dogs like/ On a summery Saturday morning""). But the dogs outdo themselves when they go after an unamused family of geese. The children and their caregiver try to catch the dogs but get mired on the beach, a problem deliciously described as: ""The mud begins its guggliwugs,/ Its guggliwugs, its guggliwugs./ Our sandals slide like slugliwugs/ On a summery Saturday morning."" Young's happy-go-lucky full-bleed cartoons build up to a carnival-like commotion, bouncing with comic discombobulation even as they hint at the panoramic expanse of the landscape. Full of fun, on any morning. Ages 2-6. (May)