cover image Kiss the Boo Boo

Kiss the Boo Boo

Sue Tarsky. Viking Children's Books, $8.99 (10pp) ISBN 978-0-670-85435-6

Already prized for its many handy applications, Velcro chalks up yet another use in this jaunty board book. A blue-and-yellow cloth bandage, fastened to the book's cover with Velcro patches (and attached to the spine by a length of cord), is called upon to assuage a series of assorted mishaps. On each of the five left-hand pages, a toddler trips, falls, drops a block on his foot or is stung by a bee, to the text's accompaniment of ``Ow!,'' ``Oops!,'' etc. ``Kiss the boo-boo... and make it better,'' reads the opposite page, with the injured body part portrayed in close-up, a handy Velcro patch in place for the bandage ``treatment.'' As depicted in Ayliffe's peppy pictures, these prototypical scenarios-with their familiar refrain-will elicit cries of recognition and sympathy from accident-prone kids. For a change, sticky situations get sticky solutions. Ages 1-4. (Aug.)