Color Me Outrageous! I Ain't Gonna Paint No More! by Karen Beaumont

Kids and cans of paint don't mix (as I found out when, decked out in Easter Sunday finest, my cousin and I, er, redecorated a neighbor's garage). In the case of I Ain't Gonna Paint No More, however, this combination produces one of the most exuberant, all-around joyous picture books in a long while. Karen Beaumont reworks the old ditty "It ain't gonna rain no more, no more" into bouncy, charming, and just-right rhymes, and David Catrow lets it all hang out with his rip-roaring illustrations of a preschooler who creates riotous body art with house paint and a brush.

The story begins as a small boy is caught "red-handed" painting his mama's floor and walls with, shall we say, bold brush strokes. Mama snatches up the paint and dunks the recalcitrant tot into the tub with a definitive "You ain't gonna paint no more!" Well, this kid is obviously driven by his muse. He finds the hidden painting supplies and sings,

So I take some red,
And I paint my head.

followed by,

Aw, what the heck
Gonna paint my neck!

Catrow skillfully uses black and white backgrounds to set off the multicolored splashes as the boy works his way down to his feet, wielding the paint brush with delicious abandon, until finally he has only one swatch of unpainted skin left, and, gleefully sings,

But I'm such a nut,
Gonna paint my---- WHAT?

just as Mama hoists him up and again plops him into a bathtub as brightly bedecked as he is to soak off all the fun.

As an example of proper behavior, it's over the top, and the grammar is nothing to brag about, but, oh, the good times to be had by reading and singing this one out loud! The illustrations are arranged so that listeners get to predict what body part gets the paint job next, and the ending will have everyone guffawing long after the splendidly splotched and splashed endpapered covers are closed. This book should be around to delight generations of giggling kids.