GOLDIE LOCKS HAS CHICKEN POX

In Dealey's debut, Goldilocks is a mid-century-modern girl, with her beige-blonde hair in pinch-tight braids and red barrettes. She mopes in bed or in her living-room Egg chair, sipping a cold drink and glumly surveying the pink "polka dots" on her rosy skin. Nursery characters like Little Red regret that Goldilocks can't "come to Gram's" with her, while others tell her not to scratch the spots: " 'Leave them be,' agreed Bo Peep,/ Who happened by in search of sheep./ 'That's sound advice for chicken pox./ It doesn't work for wayward flocks.' " Dealey's stilted rhymes hark back to the early years of the baby boom and "Dick and Jane" readers; Goldie endures the taunts of an unsympathetic little brother, while Father (dressed in a smoking jacket or dude-ranch shirt) maintains discipline. Wakiyama (Too Big!) likewise mimics 1950s picture books in her oversaturated color illustrations, printed on cream-yellow, faux-aged pages. Her work suggests the era of color separations, with fragile paper and opaque orange and turquoise inks. This fond look at old-fashioned fairy tales and family-sitcom dynamics injects wry touches (when Little Red comes by, a wolf peers in the window) that let readers in on the joke. Ages 3-6. (Feb.)