WHY I WILL NEVER EVER EVER HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO READ THIS BOOK

The illustrator of Karen Hesse’s Come On, Rain! (1999) places Charlip’s (Peanut Butter Party, not reviewed, etc.) rushed young narrator amidst an extended, multicultural family and gives her a book that is recognizably this one, sometimes even open to the same spread. As a clock ticks away in the background, she details her morning routine from first big stretch to schoolward rush, then reels off afternoon and evening tasks that somehow manage to fill every moment until bedtime. (There’s a clock to watch on every page, and multiple clocks on those with many panels.) Often, she’s got the book with her; as often, she leaves it behind. Somehow, she never gets to read it, even though it’s open wide and she’s not even going to an after-school activity. Figures are posed with casual, natural-looking grace; the legibly hand-lettered text alternates between the narrator’s breathless chatter and family members’ antiphonal comments (“WHO LEFT THIS BOOK IN THE FRIDGE?”) slanting across opposite pages. Children might want to share this veteran writer’s oblique, whimsical reminder to slow down and smell the printer’s ink with their overscheduled parents. (Picture book. 7-9)