Can you trade them in?

Everywhere Babies
By Susan Meyers
Illustrated by Marla Frazee
2001, Harcourt

From start to finish, Rosie's day could only be described as naughty.

She did not care to get out of bed in the first place, and perhaps we should have bowed to her authority on that point. Because from then on, nothing suited her. She did not want a diaper, nor clothes. She absolutely did not want her hair brushed. Nor a jacket, nor to be pried from her stroller, which she had climbed into in a last-minute ploy to avoid leaving the house.

As she arrived, sobbing, at the daycare door, she refused to relinquish her blanket and pacifier. All day, she played mean, refused to share toys and demanded attention. And when I came to pick her up, she gave an older, larger boy one last hard shove, just to make her feelings clear.

By the time we were finally settled in for bedtime reading, both of us glad to be putting the day behind us.

For awhile, Rosie ignored the stories, preferring to amuse herself by stuffing Fisher Price Little People down my bra. But eventually, she snuggled in, pulling the covers to her chin and demanding, "The baby book, mommy. I wanna the baby book."

There's something so soothing, for both of us, about "Everywhere Babies."

I take comfort in the simple narrative, a gentle reminder that millions of other parents endure this same daily struggle. And I adore the drawings, a diverse universe of cheerful, proud, exhausted caregivers, doing their best to meet an infant's demands. (One mommy has clearly dozed off mid-breastfeeding, a book splayed open in her hand -- how's that for real life?)

Rosie, too, finds much to look at among the intricate illustrations. Tonight she leaned forward, one extended finger tracing the images as I read rhymes about little ones learning and growing, making plenty of mistakes along the way.

Today, especially today, we both needed to hear the book's sentimental final stanza:

Every day, everywhere, babies are loved --
for trying so hard,
for traveling so far,
for being so wonderful...

...Just as they are!

Off to Berryland (over and over and over again)

Jamberry
By Bruce Degen
1983, Harper
(Board edition 1995)

Our copy of Jamberry arrived slightly used, part of a box of hand-me-downs a relative sent I was still pregnant. I remember looking at its slightly battered cover and thinking, 'Wow, this one's seen better days. It must have been a real favorite.' But paging through it, I wasn't sure why. Really? Strawberry ponies? A tuba-tooting bunny band? Not to mention the simpering, slightly creepy bear who appears on nearly every page.

Funny how a few years actually feeding, changing and bathing a kid changes your ideas about parenting.

I can't remember why I once thought the book in bad shape -- it's not torn, it bears no sticky juice residue or crayon scribbles. And it's WAY cleaner than most of what we bring home from the library. True, several tooth prints dent the cover, but I can no longer remember whether they were put there by Rosie or the little girls who owned it first.

So yeah, this story's sweeter than Splenda, overly precious, and frankly doesn't make much sense. But Rosie loves this book and so I do too now.

Oh, all right: probably love is too strong a word. But "Jamberry" holds a certain place in my heart, somewhere alongside the certainty that part of what's great about motherhood is that my life is no longer all about what I want.

In the past two years, we've read "Jamberry" a lot. Like, REALLY a lot. So much so that in idle moments I sometimes find the verses chugging through my head, unbidden:

Quickberry!
Quackberry!
Pick me a blackberry!

Trainberry
Trackberry
Clickety-clackberry...

A lizard who lets his freak flag fly...

A Color of His Own
by Leo Lionni
1975, Random House
2000, Knopf board edition

When Rosie was younger, her passion for turning pages grew so fierce we dared bring nothing but board books into our home.

Sadly, much of the storytelling offered in sturdy editions is distinctly lacking -- suitable for chewing, yes, but unlikely to spark a lifelong appetite for literature.

So I was thrilled to find this infant-proof version of a Leo Lionni classic.

Born in Holland, Lionni was well-known as an artist and graphic designer before he created his first children's book, at age 49. He went on to write dozens of books, four of them Caldecott Honor winners. He's known for his bold collages and poignant storylines.

I have yet to meet a Lionni book I don't love, but I'm particularly fond of "A Color of His Own."

Its big, simple pictures appeal to even the youngest audiences, and spare sentences gave parents a fighting chance to keep pace when chubby fingers long to flip ahead. Still, the story's gentle lessons on acceptance and belonging allow it to hold up through years of reading.

And now that Rosie can chime in, I realized that Lionni's work has been slyly teaching her colors all along:

One day a chameleon
who was sitting
on a tiger's tail
said to himself,

"If I remain on a leaf,
I shall be green forever,
and so I too will have
a color of my own."

With this thought he cheerfully climbed
onto the greenest leaf.

But in autumn the leaf turned yellow
-- and so did the chameleon...

A lullaby in text

Big Red Barn
By Margaret Wise Brown
Pictures by Felicia Bond
Text copyright 1956
HarperFestival board edition, 1995

The first time I read "Big Red Barn" to my daughter, I fell in love. Each word on each page is chosen perfectly, the resulting story as smooth and comforting as a baby blanket's satin edge, worn from sliding between tiny fingers.

From the pink pig who squeals in the opening pages to the little black bats who flee the barn at sunset, this quiet tale makes an ideal bedtime story. Its lulling rhythms can visibly sedate my pumped-up toddler. And in our board book edition, the illustrations grow progressively dimmer, so that the scarecrow on the final page is lit only by the moonlight that hits his shoulders and hat. (Even now, thumbing through the pages, I keep yawning).

Brown, I learned from her posthumous Web site, at one point had over 100 books in print, most of them for kids. She employed a half-dozen pen names and as many publishing houses, carried scraps of paper everywhere and sometimes awoke in the morning rushing to jot down stories that arrived in her dreams.

Brown is best known for "Goodnight Moon" and "Runaway Bunny," classics that all children should hear many times to awaken their imaginations and sense of wonder. If you would like your little one to also grow up with an ear for the beauty of words, repeat recitations of "Big Red Barn" could only help:

When the sun went down
In the great green field,
The big cow lowed,
The little pig squealed.

The horses stomped in the sweet warm hay,
and the little donkey gave one last bray...