OH, GROW UP!

Twenty-nine funny poems about the everyday indignities of childhood, from braces and hand-me-downs to the rigors of family and school life: ``Could anything be drearier/than the food in the school cafeteria?'' Westcott's bright, zany ink-and-watercolor illustrations and hand-lettered titles get right into the poems, sometimes encasing lines in dialogue balloons, sometimes adding an extra element to the drama, as in ``Danger: Overload,'' in which a busy mother fires a list of chores at her daughter, who then gets them hopelessly mixed up. The illustration of this debacle shows that the daughter has been wearing headphones and listening to music the whole time: ``No wonder that I got confused—/my mother, though, is not amused.'' Fans of Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky will find plenty to like in these mother/daughter collaborations. (Picture book/poetry. 5-8)