The Wild, Wild Inside: A View from Mommy's Tummy!

Emily and Gus are counting down the days until they can finally meet their new brother (or sister!). It's not easy to be patient. What does the baby do all day anyway? Mom always says the baby is eating...or sleeping...or kicking. But that's not all! Mom sure would be surprised if she knew what was really going on!

Publishers Weekly

Feiffer and Huliska-Beith's pregnancy comedy gets off to a slow start: the opening pages, devoted to all the baby's possible names, doesn't have much to do with what follows. But once they establish their hook, the book cruises along. Mom, whose tummy has reached are-we-there-yet proportions, has three standard answers to the story's interrogative refrain (“What's the baby doing?”): baby is eating, sleeping, or kicking. But the in utero protagonist provides the real answers—or at least answers that show the beginnings of a first-class imagination. Mom says that the baby is sleeping while she takes a shower, but the narrator, who has somehow obtained a bright yellow slicker, begs to differ. “I was on a boat in the ocean in a big storm. A big, HUGE, GIGANTIC rainstorm.” Though Huliska-Beith's (The Worst Best Friend) artwork retains the comic surrealism of previous books, some may feel she's gone too cutesy—Baby's kewpieness could be dialed back. Still, the acrylic images' sculptural feel and neon colors are a good match for Feiffer's (Which Puppy?) exuberance and may offer a welcome distraction from burgeoning displacement anxieties. Ages 4–8. (Mar.)

Kate Feiffer is a writer, a filmmaker, and a mother. The New York Times Book Review heralded Ms. Feiffer ?economy of style and understated wit? in her debut picture book Double Pink, illustrated by Bruce Ingman. She is the author of Henry the Dog with No Tail and Which Puppy? both illustrated by her father, Jules Feiffer, President Pennybaker and My Mom is Trying to Ruin My Life both illustrated by Diane Goode, as well as The Wild, Wild Inside, illustrated by Laura Huliska-Beith and The Problem with the Puddles, a middle grade novel illustrated by Tricia Tusa.  Ms. Feiffer and her family live on Martha's Vineyard, MA. Visit her at katefeiffer.com.

Laura Huliska Beith is a freelance illustrator living in Kansas City with her husband, Jeff, and three dogs Roxy, Chloe, and Jake. Several books she illustrated have been included in the Society of Illustrators Original Art show, including "Bad Ideas" which also received a Marion Vannet Ridgeway honor for its debut in Children's Publishing. Some of her most recent projects, The Worst Best Friend and The Recess Queen both written by Alexis O'Neill (Scholastic). Shown Below, The Goodnight Train by June Sobel (Harcourt).