A POTTY FOR ZAZA

This title in the Dutch series about a Black toddler named Zaza shows her mother giving her a potty. “Do you know who it is for?” Mommy asks. In what reads like an inversion of the Goldilocks tale, Zaza seats each of her stuffed animal toys one by one on the potty, finding that none are the right size for it. Her bear is too small, giraffe is too tall, a bunny too big, and a snake too long. Showing herself to be a playful good sport, even elegantly dressed Mommy, a tall Black woman, sits on the potty with a laugh. Finally, Zaza decides to try it for herself, and the book ends with her comfortably seated and the potty “just the right size.” Freeman defers questions of how and when to use the potty to caregivers, making this more an introduction to the process than anything else. While it’s refreshing to see Black characters in a slice-of-life toddler story, some American readers may balk at the exaggerated, wide-set eyes of Mommy and Zaza, which could be seen as veering toward racialized caricature. (This book was reviewed digitally with 8.7-by-16.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 26.5% of actual size.)

The potty’s for Zaza, but the book’s not for everyone.