Back to the Storks

Frustrated by the antics of its resident babies, a community sends mischievous tots “back to the storks” in this over-the-top picture book. It all starts with Otis, a child whose squeal is so loud that it even drives away dogs at the park. “When his mummy and daddy couldn’t take it any longer,” the child gets packaged up and shipped off, and other parents follow suit with biting and hair-pulling kids. The storks cleverly take advantage of the youths’ behaviors by doling out jobs (fire truck siren for loud Otis), and the remorseful parents’ return kicks off new familial tensions. Gaukroger’s comic storytelling questionably incorporates descriptions of the infants as “good” and “bad,” and feels aimed as much at caregivers as kids; Joyner’s cartoons, meanwhile, paint a picture of exhausting chaos through physical humor and exaggerated expressions in this picture of parental exasperation. Human characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 3 and up. (Mar.)