Mylisa Larsen, illus. by Babette Cole. HarperCollins/Tegen, $17.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-06-232064-3
Larsen playfully changes up the bedtime routine in her debut picture book, with parents and child swapping roles. The young narrator directly addresses readers: “Have you looked at your parents? Poor things. Just between you and me, they are not...
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Babette Cole, Author Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers $17 (30p) ISBN 978-0-679-88358-6
The author of such no-holds-barred books as Dr. Dog (see p. 69) here explores a sensitive topic: the life cycle, from birth to death. Her typically nutty saga opens with two children's smart-alecky question: ""Gran and Granddad, why are you such...
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Babette Cole, Author Puffin Books $6.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-14-240009-8
Truelove, the neglected pooch of new (human) parents, joins a pack of runaway hounds. PW said, ""Busy families may cast a guilty eye toward their loyal pets; displaced older siblings will relate to Cole's generous, and not at all misnamed, hero.""
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Babette Cole, Author Dial Books $14.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-8037-2432-7
Gleeful as ever in her cataloguing of gas-passing, nose-picking and other improprieties, Cole (The Bad Good Manners Book) introduces an almost incorrigible child. Lucretzia Crum, whose flyaway red hair sticks out in messy spikes, ""was an...
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Babette Cole, Author Putnam Publishing Group $14.95 (1p) ISBN 978-0-399-22422-5
Cole's ( The Trouble with Uncle ) latest creation is Supermoo, a heroic heifer determined to protect Earth. Like Superman, the cape-wearing bovine flies with ease, but she also takes certain cues from Batman: there's a high-tech Cowcave, a rocketing
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Babette Cole, Author Little Brown and Company $14.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-316-15190-0
Once again Cole ( Cupid ; The Silly Book ) pulls readers into a wonderfully wacky universe where ordinary rules needn't apply. Described by his more proper niece, the smiling, bearded Uncle displays the sign of the Jolly Roger on his hat, drinks...
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Babette Cole, Author Little Brown and Company $14.95 (1p) ISBN 978-0-316-15189-4
Brainy and bespectacled rat Ethelyn, an aspiring brain surgeon, earns the respect of her fellow ``ratlettes'' in a fast-paced tale especially helpful to those adjusting to a new school. When Ethelyn arrives at Cheddar Gables College, she is...
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Babette Cole, Author Simon & Schuster $10.95 (30p) ISBN 978-0-671-65670-6
Following odoriferously on the heels of The Slimy Book and The Hairy Book, Cole's book bestows upon readers a piece of light verse about some of the more fragrant objects in life: ``Smelly socks that go quite stiff . . . have the most disgusting...
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Babette Cole, Author Putnam Publishing Group $13.95 (32p) ISBN 978-0-399-21428-8
The trouble with Gran is that, beneath her grandmotherly exterior, she's an alienand a rather lively, headstrong one at that. Her young grandson is therefore apprehensive when his class undertakes an outing with the senior citizens' groupand, as it...
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Babette Cole, Author Putnam Publishing Group $13.95 (32p) ISBN 978-0-399-21206-2
In a wacky follow-up to The Trouble with Mom, Dad is bored with his job and starts fiddling around with robots, much to Mom's consternation. But fiddling with robots leads to mixed-up adventures and narrow escapes, until a wealthy Arab buys Dad's...
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Babette Cole, Author Hyperion Books $15.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-7868-0590-7
Brandishing her outrageously sly sense of humor, Cole (Mommy Laid an Egg) tweaks the topic of puberty in all of its glory, with predictably boisterous results. Here, in response to a girl's query to her teddy bear about the process of growing up,...
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Babette Cole, Author . Dial $15.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-8037-2717-5
Cole (The BAD Good Manners Book) turns greeting-card sentiment inside out in this pictorial tale of Truelove, a lonesome dog whose owners dote on their new baby. Syrupy captions about caring, offset by miniature hearts, contradict images of Truelove
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Babette Cole, Author Dial Books $13.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-8037-2006-0
Etiquette experts seldom dwell on the uproarious consequences of carelessness. Cole (Dr. Dog), on the other hand, considers chaos the spice of life. In a singsongy voice, the author lectures her readers on propriety (""Don't mess around in the...
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Babette Cole, Author Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers $16 (40p) ISBN 978-0-679-86720-3
Cole (Mommy Laid an Egg) uses a medical pretext to indulge fans of scatological jokes in this off-color, disjointed tale. Things begin innocently enough: the Gumboyle family's dog is not only their pet but their doctor. Dr. Dog discourages one...
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Babette Cole, Author Putnam Publishing Group $5.95 (32p) ISBN 978-0-399-21882-8
Sexual equality comes to fairy tales in this jaunty, contemporary version of the put-upon sibling. Ages 4-8. (Apr.)
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Babette Cole, Author Putnam Publishing Group $5.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-399-21791-3
The trouble is, Gran is an alien--``and a rather lively, headstrong one at that,'' said PW. Her antics ``give rise to wacky illustrations, which hum with a jaunty energy all their own. The art is nicely balanced by Cole's straightforward, deadpan...
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Babette Cole, Author Putnam Publishing Group $5.95 (32p) ISBN 978-0-399-21779-1
In both text and art, Cole's characteristic wacky humor sparks this fable about a contemporary princess who ``enjoyed being a Ms.'' and finds an ingenious method for retaining her single status. Ages 4-8. (June)
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Babette Cole, Author Doubleday Books for Young Readers $12.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-385-41237-7
In spite of the promise of this book's title, nothing could prepare the reader for the wackiness inside. The well balanced combination of text and artwork engenders utter lunacy on a scale that defies description. The rhyming text holds more to a...
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Babette Cole, Author Putnam Publishing Group $13.95 (32p) ISBN 978-0-399-22215-3
In the flippant, whimsical style familiar to Cole aficionados, the story of Cupid encompasses the reader in a world of gods come to earth. The obsession of Cupid's mother with beauty--and beauty pageants--drives the family down to earth so that she...
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Babette Cole, Author Cliffs Notes $5.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-698-20624-3
Mom wears funny pointed hats with rats riding on the brim, and when she makes cupcakes they explode, which the neighborhood kids love, and their parents hate. In fact, they forbid their children to go to the narrator's house. Then Mom, on her flying
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Babette Cole, Author Putnam Publishing Group $14.95 (32p) ISBN 978-0-399-21502-5
Take a classic story, substitute a few key ingredients, season freely with silliness and imagination, dress it all up in jaunty illustrations, and what have you got? In the case of Cole's Prince Cinders, an outrageously funny romp of a picture book.
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Babette Cole, Author Dragonfly Books $6.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-679-88548-1
This ""off-color, disjointed tale"" with a medical pretext is ""likely to inspire hilarity in the toilet-humor crowd,"" said PW. Ages 4-6. (Mar.)
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Babette Cole, Author, Celia Filipetto, Author Planeta $18.95 (28p) ISBN 978-84-233-3283-0
PreS-Gr 2-In this fine translation of Cole's Truelove (London, Jonathan Cape Ltd., 2001), a family pet is displaced by the arrival of a new baby. The situation is fully framed from the pet's point of view on the first page: ""Now that they have a
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Babette Cole, Author, Alaric Cole, Author Troll Communications $13.95 (1p) ISBN 978-0-8167-3308-8
Partisans of ponydom will welcome this characteristically zany picture book by Cole ( Tarzanna ; Supermoo ), as usual replete with abrupt plot twists. Winni, pressured by her vegetarian parents to eat greens at the school cafeteria, gets a...
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Babette Cole, Author, Chronicle Books, Author Chronicle Books $13.95 (40p) ISBN 978-0-8118-0350-2
Cole ( Supermoo ) unleashes her endearingly loony sense of humor on the subject of the birds and the bees, and the result is, as expected, hilarious. When a thoroughly befuddled set of '90s parents (he wears his gray hair in a ponytail, she wears...
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Babette Cole, Author, Babette Cole, Illustrator Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers $17 (32p) ISBN 978-0-679-88898-7
Cole is not the shy type. Her Drop Dead cheerfully explored mortality, and her Bad Good Manners Book took a dubious view of etiquette. This picture book, whose cover shows a boy and girl slicing a black-frosted wedding cake down the middle, tells...
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Babette Cole, Author, Babette Cole, Illustrator . Peachtree $14.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-56145-257-6
Compared to Cole's unmannerly
The Bad Good Manners Book, this guide offers reasonable advice on table settings, fine dining and how to comport oneself. On the other hand, its recommendations are dispensed by a matronly Scottish deerhound and...
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Babette Cole, Author, Ron Van Der Meer, With Doubleday Books for Young Readers $15.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-385-41679-5
The puckishly costumed narrator of this beguiling pop-up and lift-the-flap book is having a birthday party, and he extends invitations to a gaggle of cartoony creatures--a ``raging'' rhino, a quintet of singing cows, masked robbers, a heavy metal...
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