THE NUTS

A little composer gets her whole family moving and grooving to her “bop-able” beat, but it's not easy.

Tiny Hazel Nut loves to sing and dance...and she also loves her polka-dot pants. She is literally a hazelnut, with a big round body and little legs and a little puff of hair on either side of her head. Hazel writes a song celebrating her pants one rainy day, then sets out to get her family to sing and dance along with her. Hard as she tries, she can't get Papa (an acorn) to give up his book or Mama (a chestnut) to drop the laundry or brother Wally (a walnut) to abandon his carnival garb to rock out with her. So Hazel calls her Grandma Nut (not readily identifiable), who almost immediately bursts through the door and disco-dances across the floor, also wearing polka-dot pants. When Mama, Papa, and Wally hear the "happy hullabaloo," they can't resist singing and dancing too. It's "Saturday Nut Fever," complete with disco ball and lit-up dance floor. Readers are encouraged to visit TheNutFamily.com to download free songs for singing and dancing. Litwin's jaunty rhyming text has an infectious simplicity, though it's low on content and quickly grows repetitive. Magoon's Adobe Photoshop illustrations are a riot of bright colors and skittish shapes, relying on energy to compensate for occasionally unclear delineation of setting.

Parents may well hope that their children don’t pick up Hazel’s beat—but they probably will.