Lots of Kisses

Canadian poet Crozier offers a soothing rhyme, written in the voice of a caring adult speaking to a baby: “If I kiss your eyelids/ If I kiss your toes/ If I kiss the top of your head/ where your wispy hair grows.” Photographs (largely stock images) show close-ups of babies smiling, sticking their toes in their mouths (“If I kiss your littlest toes/ Whoops!—already they’ve been kissed”), and cuddling with parents. The resolution to this series of ifs (“Will I kiss away your tears?”) makes for a surprisingly somber conclusion, since the idea of distress is absent from the preceding pages. Up to age 3. (Oct.)