YOU GO AWAY

Corey’s workhorse of a text has been addressing separation anxiety for almost 35 years, first illustrated by Lois Axeman in 1976 and then by Diane Paterson in 1999. Now it has been re-illustrated again and packaged in board-book format. In Fox’s bright, cheery illustrations, a bevy of children of varying ethnicities watch their adults go away and come back while experimenting a little bit on their own. While it is certain that very young babies can begin to grasp object permanence, whether this book is the best way to reinforce it is another question. Will even young toddlers be able to decode the actions and emotions depicted in static images, however effectively illustrated? It’s still an important book, but best used with older toddlers, not babies, as the format seems to imply. (Board book. 2-3)