cover image Let George Do It!

Let George Do It!

Fran Manushkin, George Foreman, , illus. by Whitney Martin. . S&S, $15.95 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-689-87807-7

The truth—that the two-time heavyweight champ and grill shrill has five sons all named George—makes for some silly fiction in Foreman's first book for kids, coauthored with Manushkin (Baby, Come Out! ). When all the boys in the family share the same name as their dad, there's bound to be confusion. The fun begins when Mom (aka Mrs. George) asks her sons to help arrange a birthday party for their papa, Big George. Tasks get done, undone and redone as the various Georges backtrack or cover the same ground as their brothers. And poor baby George—who can't really protest—ends up with more than his fair share of baths in the process. Though there's not much of a story here, youngsters will find plenty of laughs in the premise. And there's a lot to see in debut illustrator Martin's high-energy watercolors, too. The Foreman household brims with comic details: pictures of famous Georges—Washington, Orwell, Burns, Harrison—adorn the walls; the kids consult a George Foreman cookbook and Big George, who wears a belt buckle labeled "The Champ," is appropriately larger than life. Ages 4-8. (May)