WHEN MOMMY WAS LITTLE

On this book's sly cover, a red-haired girl sneers out of a picture frame. An angel's halo hovers over the frame, but something is amiss. This girl, apparently now a "Mommy," has the arched eyebrow and crooked smile of a playground tyrant. Like the tongue-in-cheek title, which plays on the presumed sweetness of "Mommy" and "little," the ingenuous text mimics a child's voice. "My mommy says that when she was little, she ate everything on her plate./ She never put her fingers in her nose./ She never pulled the dog's tail." Simultaneously, crude cartoon images, drawn in rough black ink and blood-red paint on an oatmeal-beige background, contradict every word. The young bully cackles at oversize graffiti reading "poop fart peepee" ("She never used rude words"), draws ugly caricatures on the wall and terrifies her brother with a scary book at bedtime. Most of the spreads, including one in which the girl wears a stethoscope and a threatening grin, make for qualified hilarity ("She never played doctor with the little boy next door"). Some, such as a close-up of the girl as a red-faced ogre, are downright scary ("Mommy never behaved like a little monster"). Throughout, the coy statements and brutish images question parental honesty and children's credulousness ("And I always believe every word my mommy says. Don't you?"). This knowing book allows for skepticism toward adults, and its wicked irony puts it in league with cathartic titles like I'm Not Bobby! and Alicia Has a Bad Day . All ages. (Oct.)