Chimps who charm

Cha Cha Chimps
By Julia Durango
Illustrated by Eleanor Taylor
2006, Simon and Schuster

The little one can't read yet, of course, which means her father and I serve as her sole portal to literary enrichment.

Left to her own devices, she would probably only choose books with Muppets or bits of faux fur on the cover. But since we're the ones who have to actually recite this stuff aloud, I don't think it's wrong to hide "Sparkly Touchy Feely Fairies" behind the diaper pail, and stock the bedtime rotation with more rewarding fare.

Which, ahem, does not mean our choices are always quite grown-up, either.

Take "Cha Cha Chimps."

OK, don't take our copy. Eventually we'll return it to the shelves of our city's public library, so other toddlers can enjoy it too.

But we still have a few days left on the most recent renewal of this jazzy counting rhyme, about a group of chimpanzees who sneak out to a late-night dance club.

And for now we're still smitten -- embarassingly, hopelessly, ridiculously hooked on the indelible rhythm of its refrain, the kind that sometimes escapes accidentally while I'm, say, waiting in a long line at Trader Joes:

Meercat macarenas
to a funky Latin beat.
His body shimmy-shimmies
from his whiskers to his feet.

Ee-ee
oo-oo
ah-ah-ah
3 little chimps do the
cha-cha-cha...

And now for something extra loud

Do Like a Duck Does
By Judy Hindley
Illustrated by Ivan Bates
2002, Candlewick Press

A happy accident brought this super-fun book into our lives.

Leery of lugging a proper selection of storybooks on a cross-country flight, we asked Grandpa Ed to keep an eye out for kids' titles on his normal thrift-store rounds.

He arrived for our shared vacation with, bless his heart, a hefty cardboard box that Rosie happily plundered for most of the week. She enjoys any new book, but it quickly became clear that "Do Like a Duck Does" stood bill and tail feathers above the rest.

This book is a joy to read aloud, combining perfectly paced rhyme with a comic storyline just right for toddlers (one so exciting, in fact, that you may choose to reserve it for non-bedtime readings). Rosie screams in delight as an ill-intentioned fox falls in with a line of ducklings, trying to convince their skeptical mother that he too has wings and waddles.

Bate's illustrations add oodles of character -- softening the fox's menace with buffoonery, and gracing crafty Mama Duck with considerable pluck:

"Look!" says Mama.
"What a lovely patch of muck!
Jump in the puddle, dear.
Show you're a duck!
Lots of bugs and beetles
swimming in the scum.
Open up your beak, dear.
Yum!
Yum!
Yum!"...