  | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 10/01/2009 With thick-lined cartoon illustrations in bright colors and clear bold type that gets bigger and bigger, this picture book tells the story of a young preschooler who shouts out her furious jealousy about her new little brother. Grown-ups croon at his eensy-weensy little toes (“gitchy-gitchy-goo!”), but she fumes about the “truth” that babies are not sweet, precious, or cute. The pictures show her viewpoint of her new sibling as an alien creature who has big eyes and a bald head and makes strange noises. The physical realities of living with a baby sibling ring true. When he learns to crawl and then walk, he gets into Sophie’s things, and he stinks up the backseat of the car. Then, after dispensing advice on how to live with a monster, Sophie gives a surprising warning: watch out; as he reaches out to you, you might actually start to like him. The details of messy daily life and the honest, unsentimental expressions of rage and bonding are just right for young children to recognize and laugh about together. - Copyright 2009 Booklist. School Library Journal - 12/01/2009 PreS-Gr 2— In no uncertain terms, a girl warns readers about the perils of a new sibling. Looking like an alien at first, and the object of unwarranted praise and attention, a baby is prone to all manner of gross behaviors. Sophie reveals that the situation doesn't get better as the infant grows into a toddler (known as a "monster"): stealing Halloween candy, swallowing lucky marbles, and exhibiting general uninhibited behavior. She softens, though, when the monster begins to focus affection on her but leaves readers with a warning not to reveal this softness to parents lest they repeat the experience. Weeks has created a feisty, forthright protagonist who lays out the pros and cons of a new brother with delightful tongue-in-cheek detail. The ink and digitally colored illustrations and boldface words in the text perfectly catch the narrative nuances and enhance it with cheeky perspectives and funny touches. Older siblings will laugh at the younger child's antics and parents will chortle at Sophie's reactions and perspective in all her righteous truth telling.—Marge Loch-Wouters, La Crosse Public Library, WI - Copyright 2009 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Bulletin for the Center... - 01/01/2010 “If your parents ever ask, ‘Would you like to have a little brother or sister someday?’ you should definitely say . . . ‘No!’” reports Sophie Peterman, three years a big sister and none too happy about it. Why? Because babies are “your worst nightmare!” She makes a convincing case, identifying many of the offputting things about babies, such as their smell, their destructive ability, and their tendency to get siblings in trouble (“If you pinch a screaming monster even the tiniest little bit, the monster’s mother will come running in”). Worst of all, of course, is that she started to kind of like her baby brother—and now her parents have brought home another one. This is a familiar theme, but Weeks brings a snappy humor to her catalogue of indignities, and older sibs in the audience will recognize and giggle at the truths (such as the stinky perils of sitting next to a diapered baby on a long car trip). The illustrations, India-ink linework with a graininess that suggests black crayon and spaces filled with planes of digital color, have a robustness appropriate to determined little Sophie, and the occasional surprise closeups of the baby have an amusing horror-movie flavor. Kids looking for a bracing counterpart to Lloyd-Jones’ How to Be a Baby (BCCB 4/07) will want to heed Sophie’s comedic and indeed truthful proclamations. DS - Copyright 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Loading...
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