Oh, Daddy! - Hardcover

Starred Review. PreSchool-Grade 1—In this humorous paean to fatherhood, a rounded, Raschka-esque hippo explains that he is so smart that he shows his dad how to do things. Shea goes through a series of scenarios in which the father gets his son to do what he wants by pretending he doesn't know how to do it correctly. When the youngster claims to be "busy getting dressed," the pictures show him watching TV in his underwear. The father proceeds to mix up his clothing and asks, "Is this how you get dressed?" prompting the child to respond, "Oh, Daddy! This is how you get dressed!" And so it goes, ending with the boy showing his father how to give big hugs. The concise text captures the child's voice perfectly, and the well-placed page-turns effectively set up what comical thing the adult has done to prompt each "Oh, Daddy!" The mixed-media illustrations incorporate collage elements into a spare, cartoonlike world depicting thickly outlined blue hippos with dot eyes and expressive faces. The gentle humor evident in the contrasts between text and pictures, as well as the scenes of the father doing things outrageously wrong, will keep kids entertained. This will work equally well in storytimes or one-on-one. Buy it for Father's Day and put it out all year as an antidote to the cloyingly sweet parent-child books glutting the market.—Amy Lilien-Harper, The Ferguson Library, Stamford, CT
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