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Caregivers are encouraged to read with their babes.

“On your lap, snug and warm, / every day since I was born.” So open the uneven rhymes that encourage family bonding through books. Author Hutton is a pediatrician, and he imparts sage early-literacy advice within the pages of the book and in a note to caregivers on the back cover. Brown’s art, which only uses pink, blue, black, white, and gray and instantly recalls the work of LeUyen Pham, shows both the joys and the sometimes-less-than-joyful realities of reading with the very young. The most delightful spread depicts a hulking, beleaguered, neck-tie–wearing parent attempting to read with a tiny, squirmy, wide-eyed infant in four droll vignettes. Diverse families are represented, but the limited palette means that gray rather than shades of brown are used to signify darker complexions, which leaves some looking a little bit ill.

There is much to love here; it’s a pity it doesn’t shine in full color.