I AIN’T GONNA PAINT NO MORE!

A madcap painting romp finds a little boy covered head-to-toe in paint—and then he finds himself in the tub. Sung (there’s no other way to read this story) to the tune of “It Ain’t Gonna Rain No More,” the text leads its protagonist from initial misdeed to his mother’s injunction against painting to a clandestine orgy of self-decoration, body part by body part: “I take some red / and I paint my . . . / HEAD! / Now I ain’t gonna paint no more. / Aw, what the heck! / Gonna paint my . . . / NECK!”—and so on. One of Catrow’s patented twisted kewpies, the paint-addicted tot is depicted against a pristine black-and-white (and just cleaned) house, the only color his striped pajamas and the paints—and his increasingly gloppy self. His dog looks on with bewilderment as not only his owner but his own body becomes a Technicolor masterpiece. The bounce of the song is echoed in an animated typography in which not one word is horizontally aligned. Here’s one that kids will beg for again and again and again. (Picture book. 3-7)