On the Home Team! It's Big Sister Time by Nandini Ahuja

MOM AND DAD BROUGHT HOME SOMEONE NEW TODAY. "IT'S OUR BABY!" THEY SAID.

"HOW LONG WILL THE BABY STAY?" I ASKED.

The girl is taken aback when her parents tell her the baby will stay forever and that he will be her best friend. He's not much of a friend at first. He's noisy. He smells really bad sometimes. And as soon as he can move around, she learns that he doesn't know ANY of the rules--like, Don't knock down your sister's best block tower.

"YOU HAVE TO TEACH HIM THE RULES OF THE HOUSE," HER DAD SAYS.

"YOU'RE THE BIG SISTER!"

The Big Sister decides that her Rule #1 will be "Do not play with my toys!"

But that's easier said than done. She soon finds that it's easier to let him have something she doesn't really need, like her crib blanket. When her grandparents come over to teach her how make a dessert, it all right if he wears the chef's hat, so long as she gets to stir and gets the first taste. When she plays superhero, he's happy with just one small scarf for a cape. When she builds a fort from cushions and pillows, it's sort of fun to read a cozy story to him inside it.

"ON MOVIE NIGHTS I GET TO SIT BETWEEN MOM AND DAD.

But there's something nice about offering to have her brother sit on her lap sometimes, too.

THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE IS, "WE STICK TOGETHER."

A family is on the same team together in Nandini Ahoja's It's Big Sister Time! (My Time) (Harper Festival Books, 2021), illustrated sensitively and sweetly by the artwork of Catalina Echeverri, which shows the the markers in the development of sibling affection, as a feeling of oneness and togetherness slowly grow between big sister and baby brother as part of a family. Says Kirkus, "A sweet debut that offers a tongue-in-cheek instruction manual for new big sisters."