Baby Says

Baby Says portrays two brothers in a playroom, a toddler in his playpen and the older child playing with blocks nearby. The toddler wants to play with his older brother and seeks his attention by repeatedly throwing his teddy bear out of his playpen. When the older child indulges his brother, the toddler immediately knocks over his brother's block construction. When his older brother expresses his frustration, the toddler smoothes things over with a kiss. The story is told in a toddler's vocabulary, employing only seven words in a few phrases: "uh oh," "no no," "okay baby," and "here"; many pages are wordless. With such simple language, the action of the story is carried by the very realistic pencil drawings done in soft colors. The illustrations are primarily tightly cropped views of the space in the playroom that the children occupy, but as the story reaches its emotional climax, the illustrations shift perspective to extreme close-ups on the children's faces. This book is often considered a multicultural book because the children in the book are African-American, though ethnicity is not at all the subject of this story. Toddlers (and siblings of toddlers) of any ethnicity will relate to this simple story about the warmth of a sibling relationship. This is an excellent book for toddlers and older children to read together.