Welcome to the World

Capturing the joys and trials of caring for a new baby, the collaborators employ winning verse and sweetly rendered portraits of caregivers and infants. “Welcome to the day,” Donaldson (The Gruffalo) begins, as Oxenbury (We’re Going on a Bear Hunt) draws a slender adult in heels cuddling a baby in front of a sunny window. “Welcome to the night,” she continues, as a caregiver in rumpled pajamas holds an infant, gazing out the window at a frosty moon. Early discoveries (“Welcome to your fingers./ Welcome to your toes”), new sights (“the person in the mirror/ who looks a bit like you”), and mischief (“Welcome to the glasses/ that are fun to pull off noses”) are all celebrated in cozy watercolor, gouache, and pencil spreads, which portray people with varying body types and skin tones. As consistently rhymed and metered lines unfurl, the children mature on every spread, growing from infancy to toddlerhood, entering a classroom setting invoking a binary “Welcome to the girls./ Welcome to the boys,” and receiving a welcome “to the earth below/ and to the sky above.// Welcome, little baby./ Welcome to our love.” Ages 4–8. (Jan.)