LET'S GO PUDDLING!

Rainy days equal fun!

It’s raining, it’s pouring. What better time for doting parents, neighbors in an apartment building, to take their kids outside? Suiting up their toddlers and infant appropriately in brightly hued rain gear and galoshes, they step outdoors and, with the babe in a stroller, watch their children gleefully greet each other and take off. There are PUDDLES to jump in! Even a pet dog gets involved. This book delivers frolicking tots gamboling in said puddles—there’s mud, too—and offers up examples of delicious onomatopoeic words readers and listeners will delight in repeating as they mimic the kids’ activities. (Savvy grown-ups will provide children opportunities to display their puddle-jumping prowess.) A few from the text to savor that simply drip with squishy “wet” sounds are set in oversized type, e.g., “Squish! Squash! Squelch!” When the puddle jumpers are thoroughly soggy, it’s time to return home, remove wet togs, and have a snuggle. Then, to top off the day, just when you thought nature couldn’t produce a better show, a gorgeous multicolored arc appears in the sky. This exuberant British import, written in staccatolike prose emulating the rapid patter of raindrops, is a rainy-day winner. The colorful, energetic digital illustrations appropriately resemble watercolors. One of the families is brown-skinned, another is White-presenting, and the other includes a tan-skinned parent and lighter-skinned child. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Jump right into this joyful charmer.