Too Busy Marco

It's time for bed again, and Marco, a small red bird who lives with his (human) mother and father, simply has too much to do! He's got masterpieces to paint, underwater inventions to create, halfpipes to skate — or better yet, inventions to create so that he can paint underwater while skateboarding at a world-class level! How can it possibly all get done? When one idea builds on top of another, and every object he encounters just screams inspiration, why would Marco ever want to put on his pajamas and brush his beak? With humor and a great deal of energy, this delightful new character from acclaimed illustrator Roz Chast will rev kids up and wear them out—just in time for bed.

It's time for bed again, and Marco, a small red bird who lives with his (human) mother and father, simply has too much to do! He's got masterpieces to paint, underwater inventions to create, halfpipes to skate — or better yet, inventions to create so that he can paint underwater while skateboarding at a world-class level! How can it possibly all get done? When one idea builds on top of another, and every object he encounters just screams inspiration, why would Marco ever want to put on his pajamas and brush his beak? With humor and a great deal of energy, this delightful new character from acclaimed illustrator Roz Chast will rev kids up and wear them out—just in time for bed.

Publishers Weekly

Marco, a revved-up red parrot who behaves like a boy, cannot pause for sleep. At bedtime, he is preoccupied with everything he could be doing instead. Marco envisions discovering new fish (like the "cube-headed la-di-dah"), painting underwater ("Naturally he would need to invent underwater paint"), and a career in bowling ("If that wasn't cool, Marco didn't know what was"). "Marco, aren't you forgetting about something?" asks his alarm clock, which starts chasing him at 7:45 and is still ticking an hour later. At the height of his indecision, Marco's saucer eyes spin like pinwheels as he wonders, "How could he do it all?" As in her New Yorker cartoons, Chast (The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z!) relies on voice-bubble asides and cartoon doodads to present an array of tempting, absurd options. Fidgety Marco finally snoozes, and he's shown skateboarding through space, along with the alarm clock, whose hands have vanished. Dedicated "to the real Marco," a bird in Chast's household, this study in hyperactivity recommends relaxation, though the fixation on overwhelming choices could leave some readers as breathless as Marco. Ages 4-8. (Aug.)

Roz Chast is a staff cartoonist for The New Yorker and is the illustrator of Steve Martin's popular children's book The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z. She lives in Connecticut with her human family and three birds, Eli, Petey, and Marco.