Easter Egg Hunt! The Easter Surprise (Sweet Pea and Friends) by John and Jennifer Churchman

Sweet Pea the sheep had promised Fern a surprise today.

Fern the Bunny is curious. She heads for the barn, but on the way she hears two squirrels chattering. What is going on?

"I didn't put it there, did you?" one squirrel says.

Fern sees it, a beautiful painted egg. But it doesn't have stripes or polka dots. It has a lovely little miniature painting of Mo the Kitten right in the middle. Fern hurries to show it to Mo. But Mo has something to show, too!

"Look what I found! " Mo says.

He has found an egg painted with a picture of Keeper, the goose. It's a mystery, and Fern and Mo are on the case!

One thing leads to another! Following the trail, they find that Keeper has found an egg that leads them to Maisie the sheepdog and then to Little Finn the lamb who has an egg with a painting of the rooster on it. Another clue! They dash to the chicken house. The detectives soon have a basket full of beautiful eggs, but the chickens say they know nothing. Who could have left them?

John and Jennifer Churchman's latest in their series about the animals on their Vermont far, The Easter Surprise (Sweet Pea & Friends) (Little, Brown and Company, 2019) lets youngsters join in the fun of an idyllic old fashioned egg hunt, with tall grasses and clumps of wild flowers concealing the not-too-well hidden eggs, real eggs colored by someone who is happy to watch the youngsters find the eggs one by one. John and Jennifer Churchman provide the soft watercolor illustrations combined with photos of their own farm animals in a lovely story of an old-fashioned Easter egg hunt which will encourage sharp-eyed youngsters to help with the search.

John and Jennifer Churchman's popular series began with The SheepOver (Sweet Pea & Friends) (see reviews here).

Sweet Sleep! Baby Animals Take A Nap by Marsha Diane Arnold

Upside-down nap

Inside-pouch nap

How do baby mammals grab a few winks? Let us count the ways!

Baby foxes doze sweetly and safely, hidden inside the dens that their mother and father have dug for them.

Small sloths snooze tummy-to-tummy with Mommy, whereas baby emperor penguin chicks rest upright, just leaning against a parent. Baby sea otters snooze holding hands with Mom. Baby bottlenose dolphins sleep in the deep on Mama's back while she snatches a moment of slumber, too. But baby monkeys on their moms' backs snore away while she stays on the move.

Little koalas curl up to catnap in Mother's pouch, and of course it's a baby bat who hangs head-down, wrapped in a parent's wings.

And baby humans? They especially love to snuggle in someone's arms, in Marsha Diane Arnold's brand-new Baby Animals Take a Nap (Charlesbridge, 2017). Arnold's narration, with simple but sibilant wordsmithery soothes, while the illustrations of Phyllis Tildes, with their soft-framed natural backgrounds and furry-textured animal babies sleeping under the care of a parent make a snooze seem almost irresistible. This is a sweet and lovely little board book for the very youngest, just right for bedtime or naptime.

Father Knows Best? Your Baby's First Word Will Be Dada! by Jimmy Fallon

COMPETITIVE PARENTING: ROUND 1!

Why NOT? Why CAN'T a baby's first word be DADA instead of MAMA?

A belligerent-looking bull demands a DADA out of his little calf.

MOO

A righteous ram offers DADA.

The little lamb listens.

BAA

A dog demands a dada from his offspring.

The pup woofs back. A persistent rabbit and tomcat try their luck. A rooster crows out his da-da-doodle-do! A daddy pig grunts out his preferred alternative title.

But nature has the last word, and none of the newbies come up with the magic word.

Well, logically, human history and speech development experts agree that MMMM! is easier to say that DDDD!

But expecting his first baby, Jimmy Fallon refused to accept the popular wisdom. To overcome the mommy milk advantage, he offered his new baby a bottle and called it a dada. "Want your dada?" he cooed.

Did it work? Well, no.

But you can't blame a dad for trying, in Fallon's best-selling new salute to fathers, Your Baby's First Word Will Be DADA (Feiwel and Friends, 2015). Miguel Ordonez's deadpan animal babies, done up in simple Playskool-shapes deadpan their usual "ribbets, peeps, oinks," and "meows." But if it's any consolation to loving dads like Jimmy Fallon, his baby animals don't exactly say "Mama," either! And artist Ordonez offers a triumph to doting daddies in his comic closing endpapers, where all the little ones do manage to yell out DADA, all except a determined little duckling, that is! There's always one in every crowd!

This is a wonderful Fathers Day book for expectant daddies, and a natural for babies, toddlers and even almost-emergent readers who learn to decipher a few animals sounds along the way.