ACHOO!

After learning to use the potty (Have You Seen My Potty?, 2007), Suzy Sue and her farm-animal friends are back, this time teaching the very young some manners in rhyming verses with a catchy beat. When Suzy Sue sneezes in their faces, the animals decide it’s high time she learned how to behave. They instruct her in three rules of etiquette: “Don’t be disgusting”; “Don’t eat like a pig.”; “Do not fight.” But in explaining these rules to the tot, they insult the dog, whom they say stinks, and the pigs, who eat too much, and the cats, whose tug-of-war rope they cut in half. Suzy Sue then intervenes and teaches the animals the rule they forget—the golden rule. While dogs and smelliness and pigs and eating often go hand in hand, the fighting cats may be a little further from readers’ ken, and the illustrations are not much help in puzzling out how the cats are being rude. Still, McQuillan’s whimsical cartoon animals are full of personality, and her bright colors and humorous details are sure to have readers poring over the illustrations. (Picture book. 3-6)