TWIN TO TWIN

O'Hair, making her debut, and French artist Courtin tell their whole story on the first spread: "Double born./ Twice the blessing./ Double kids./ Twice the messing." First shown as infants, the redheaded boy-girl duo graduates to toddlerhood by the third spread. Their mischievous maturity, as well as the structure of a single day, makes possible a host of different adventures—from catching ladybugs to pillow fights. All this activity, however, starts to blur together, and never quite compensates for the pictures' never-varying straight-on perspective, or the repetitive rhyming ("Double rolling/ down the hill./ Double Band-Aids/ when they spill"). Still, Courtin's digital artwork creates considerable visual pull. He works in the bright, comic colors of the classic Tintin books, and renders his stars on a large scale, so that their eager expressions (and, in one case, the boy's bare bottom) draw readers into every spread. Ages 2-5. (May)