AUTUMN BABIES

A group of toddlers and their pup enjoy the change of seasons playing in a park.

Colorful stylized illustrations depict a park with lollipop-shaped trees, shades of red, yellow, and orange setting the scene: “It’s autumn in the park.” The text that runs along the bottoms of the pages on a beige-colored strip describes the illustrations: “Leaves swirl. / Acorns fall. // Squirrels dig” (though this particular squirrel is just holding an acorn). Then readers see a group of toddlers—one black, one brown, one olive-skinned, and one white—playing. They “toss,” “stomp,” “roll,” “romp,” and play with a puppy. The verbs imply action; the illustrations, though, are somewhat static. The book concludes with “It’s autumn!” as a child peeks out from a pile of leaves. Following the same format, the companion book, Winter Babies, is set in the same park, and the same children are now playing in the wintry scene. Their tongues catch snowflakes as they drift down, their boots sink in the snow, and they ride down a slope on a sled. As a child peeks out from a snowdrift the book declares, “It’s winter!”

Sweet and attractive but not much more.