BUSY BUSY

A day in the life of a busy, busy toddler.

Spread by busy spread, Scott provides a first-person overview of a brown-haired, pale-skinned child’s play-filled day. In an unusual move, the book opens with a nighttime scene of the weary, pajama-clad child denying that she is sleepy, and then it moves into a retrospective narration of her day. The colorful, playful, digital illustrations burst with the joy she takes in painting, feeding her many stuffed animals, building with blocks, and so on. The catchy refrain “I had a Busy Busy day!” concludes each double-page spread, but the text ultimately suffers a bit from its adoption of the first person, since some lines seem forced and aimed over the heads of children or else unnecessary. For example, the line “Mommy said she loved the paintings that were on paper but didn’t like the ones on the floor so much” might have been more effective and funnier had it ended with the word “paper,” since the illustration makes plain that there is abundant painting on the floor. The illustrations, however, don’t miss a beat in conveying the child’s experience. At book’s end, the nighttime scene that opened the book returns, but this time the child drifts off to sleep, and readers are rewarded with two concluding double-page spreads revealing her fantastical dreamscapes.

Busy, busy, fun, fun! (Picture book. 2-4)