My Working Mom

This gigglesome picture book about a ``working mom'' who's a witch fairly bursts with luminous illustrations, riotous counterparts to the deadpan text. Not that Glassman ( The Wizard Next Door ) wants to put too much color into his narrative--statements made by the narrator (the career mom's chatty daughter) could apply to any family, while the slapstick-y pictures are meant as the giveaway. Here, the mother's chemistry set includes a glowing caldron into which she tosses flies and green goo, and on Career Day she upstages other rather weird parents (among them a Frankenstein and the Creature from the Black Lagoon) by taking her daughter's classmates on a broom ride. Witchery and home life often mingle, as when the girl claims that her mother sometimes ``yells at me for playing with something she's working on''--while an illustration shows her enjoying a game of badminton with an enormous frog. Arnold's ( Green Wilma ) punchy watercolor and colored-pencil pictures seem lit from within, and his lizards, mice and assorted creepy-crawlies are endearing rather than slimy; if this book rates low on the fun-to-read scale, its fun-to-look-at level is through the roof. Ages 3-up. (Apr.)