THE AUNTS GO MARCHING

Manning debuts with a good-humored twist on the traditional counting song. A child and her aunt on a rainy-day trip into town are joined along the way by a growing phalanx of aunts brandishing umbrellas and shopping bags. As the child taps out the rhythm on a snare drum, the aunts—each depicted as a distinct individual and, at least in the outside rows, countable—march purposefully down the street and into shops, then, as thunder rumbles, quick-step back to their row houses beneath a forest of black umbrellas (looking somewhat like those other ants). It’s impossible to read this without singing, and children who hear it will join in enthusiastically. An irresistible story time companion for Jama Kim Rattigan’s Truman’s Aunt Farm (1994). (Picture book. 5-8)