Washing Up! Baby Animals Take a Bath by Marsha Diane Arnold

Not everyone in the animal kingdom bathes, of course. Snakes don't. Cicadas don't. But maybe staying in their dirty old skins isn't such a great idea. After all, snakes have to shed those old skins. And crustaceans like cicadas molt. And both groups are in danger from predators while they are in the midst of these tedious processes.

But most other little creatures have better ways to keep clean. Baby polar bears and baby fur seals go to opposite extremes in the name of hygiene.

Baby seals choose sun baths. Baby polar bears seek snow baths.

Some babies just make use of their natural equipment. A tiger cub takes a bath with his tongue. A baby elephant uses his flexible trunk to take a shower.

Some small creatures take advantage of whatever is in their environments. A chickadee picks a handy puddle. A snow monkey chooses a steam bath in a hot spring. A baby zebra rolls in the dust, and baby hippos hop in the mud.

And the youngest humans kick and splash bubbles in their baby bathtubs, in Marsha Diane Arnold's Baby Animals Take a Bath (Charlesbridge, 2017). Arnold crafts the simplest of texts, with each full picture page featuring an adjective and a noun, in a board book that may even empower emergent readers.

Tongue bath.

Trunk bath.

And with artist Phyllis Tildes' charming and detailed illustrations of expressive baby animal faces, not to mention their textured fur and feet, it seems each one happily enjoys its own style of bathing, an incentive to young humans who may be reluctant to take to the suds.