NOBODY

A child excluded from joining their friends feels jealousy and self-doubt.

A menagerie of animals (a raccoon, a penguin, an elephant, and more) gather for many fun activities. But a young human tot is always left out. Alone on the page, with sad eyes and a huge frown, the youngster wonders, “Does nobody love me? / Does nobody care?” The animals pile into a car for an ice-cream trip (there’s no room for the child), they trick-or-treat through the neighborhood (they don’t wait for the kid), and they splash in the pool (the child watches from behind the bushes, uninvited). A surprise birthday party in the end is purportedly why the animals were avoiding the youngster the entire time. There are a few hints of birthday planning hidden in the art (decorations in a box, a list of party necessities), but it’s a difficult leap to make since not many of the activities themselves are related to party planning. It simply reads as if the animals are ignoring the child for a long period of time—which makes the happy resolution fall flat. The art is the star with squat, adorable animals and an emotive tyke with light skin, but the text reaches for rhymes and falters with the overall arc. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Readers may identify with the experience of social rejection but will flounder through the rest.