Synopsis
From the moment it’s “Time to get up!” until it’s time to be tucked back in bed, a toddler’s day is filled with activity. And so is his doll’s. There’s time to swim in the wading pool, slide down the slide, and stop to look at a snail. Later, there’s time to sweep, time to take a bath, and time for a bedtime story. Meanwhile, this little boy’s parents keep as loving an eye on their son as he does on his doll.
David Milgrim’s simple rhymed text and his unique, childlike illustration style are perfect for beginning readers, who will find much to relate to in this story of how a little boy and his doll spend a busy day.
Publishers Weekly
Like Milgrim's Thank You, Thanksgiving, a concise rhyming text here depicts an unnamed child in a series of slice-of-life events. Readers follow a boy and his trusty doll from waking (before the rest of the house, of course) to bedtime. Milgrim divvies up the day into discrete "times," thereby attributing adult-level importance to each activity. The line "Time for swim class./ Time to slide./ Time for stopping./ Time to ride" finds the boy engaged in four different backyard activities, one per page. In the first, he and some friends gather around a wading pool watching their dolls float (or in the case of one doll, sink). Most of the play enables the boy to fill non-gender specific parental roles. He feeds the doll, cooks and reads for it, takes care of its boo-boo, and even stops for a sidewalk gab with a female peer while his "baby" sleeps in a stroller and hers dozes in a toy buggy. No matter what engages his considerable energy, the boy comes across as eager and upbeat, often flashing a wide-mouthed smile that takes up much of his little round head. Milgrim has a keen eye for detail (e.g., the play "stove" is an upside-down box) and a savvy sense of composition-there's never any question of where readers should look first. Preschoolers should enjoy perusing these pages, and comparing how their own busy days stack up against the hero's. Ages 3-6. (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.