Nancy Patz and Susan L. Roth
Babies Can't Eat Kimchee
Bloomsbury Children's Books,2007

Ages up to 6

Babies can't eat Kimchee and that's only the start... what do you do with a baby sister who can't do anything except lie there and every now and again 'make a BIG FUSS'?

Nancy Patz and Susan L. Roth have captured beautifully the mixed feelings that an older sibling can have when a new baby arrives in the family. On the one hand, there is the excitement of all the things they'll be able to do together, which has probably also been fed by parental preparation; there is the superiority of being able to do things so much better; and then there is the perplexity and complexity of trying to bond with this small person who doesn't get up and join in. These emotions are inherent to the extraordinarily vivid pastel and collage illustrations too.  Through them we see the progression from the start where she is set against a background of heavily stroked, angry colors as she regards her baby sister cocooned in pinks and rosebuds, to the end, where she is looking a little wiser and sunnier.

Now is perhaps not quite the time to be teaching her little sister to dance and sing and have secrets together—but that time will come.

This is a delightful book for any child who is expecting a baby sister, or indeed brother—and one that will make parents smile too as they read.

Marjorie Coughlan
March 2007