cover image If I Ran the Family

If I Ran the Family

Lee Johnson, Lee Kaiser Johnson. Free Spirit Publishing, $14.95 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-915793-41-9

This heavy-handed doggerel about attending to children's emotional needs reads like a parody of self-help books. In rhymed couplets, Debbie Dundee enumerates the changes she would make if she headed her household for a day. The book's message is that kids should not bottle up their emotions. But instead of teaching children (or parents--the intended audience is unclear) how to cope with real problems, the overly cute text serves as a euphemistic leveler, conflating problems as trivial as being served foods one doesn't like and as potentially serious as refusing to tell dreadful secrets. In concluding, Debbie asks the reader: ``Can you share all your feelings / without any fear? / When you want a hug, / can you hold someone near?'' Despite her Pollyanna-ish assurances, the book's stereotypical scenario--every child lives in a fine home with two caring parents--has nothing to offer the child who answers ``No'' to any of Debbie's questions. Morales's illustrations, which bear an unfortunate resemblance to coloring-book art, commendably portray Debbie, who is Caucasian, with two nonwhite siblings, although issues of adoption are never addressed in the text. Ages 4-9. (Oct.)