Baby Animals

April 1, 1989
``It is morning, and everything is waking up. / Birds are waking up the way birds wake up. / Pigs are waking up the way pigs wake up. / And children are waking up too.'' A black girl in a farmhouse has breakfast and gets dressed before helping her parents feed and care for the lambs, puppies and kittens that have also just begun their day. While the baby animals are eating lunch, the girl eats, too. And in the evening, everyone--baby animals and child--must go to sleep. Brown's story, first published in 1941, has the same comforting repetition found in Good night Moon , although this text is much longer. Jeffers's watercolor illustrations, with detailed work in ink, let readers join the reassuring world where animals and children are loved and cared for. The juxtaposition of pictures and white space to text, and the use of soft, spring-like colors, give the design a spacious, welcoming look. Ages 3-6.