The Right to Sing The Blues: Brand-New Baby Blues by Kathi Appelt

It's official.
It's the news!

With my brand-new baby brother
Came the brand-new baby blues!

Our gal has got the right to sing the blues! There's her new little brother, wearing her cute little newborn-sized sleeper, snoozing in her cute little bed. Mom and Dad, whose lives seemed to be perfect when all their thoughts were of her, seem totally besotted with this baby, even though he can't do anything cool with them like she can, just eat, sleep, and make P-E-E-U-W diapers.

"Am I blue? You'd be, too" she thinks as she makes her case. But there's just a hint of a possibility that things may be look up in, oh, or year or two, or maybe more. Then they'll fly kites and play ball together. She'll have someone to play hide and seek with and introduce to all the big kid mysteries:

"I can't wait to teach him to spit!"

Kathi Appelt, whose hilarious Bubba and Beau picture books, augmented by the just-right Texas touches of Arthur Howard, looked at life from the baby's point of view, flips the perspective in her Brand-New Baby Blues (Harper, 2011), making the most of her considerable (Newbery Honor-winning) literary skills to craft a funny rhyming text which sum up the sibling's dilemma.