My Brother Dan's Delicious/Love the Baby

PreS-Gr 2—An eight-and-a-half-year-old boy succumbs to moments of monster fear when he comes home to an empty house one evening. Thinking quickly, he gets inside the house, identifies possible monster hiding places, and earnestly tries to persuade them to wait for his brother, Dan, and to eat him instead. Dan will be easy to capture, large enough for three good meals, and as tasty as a Thanksgiving turkey already stuffed. Each point is followed by the phrase "My brother Dan's delicious." Conveying cunning, hysteria, and finally relief, Steven L. Layne narrates his story (Pelican, 2003). He explains in an author's note to those who have not seen the book that the dark shadow reaching for the boy is really Dan, home from the movies and now his brother's hero. In Layne's Love the Baby (Pelican, 2007), a bunny finds that his mother, grandmother, and father are all doing special things with the new baby that they once did with him. At first, the older sibling only pretends to love the baby. One night, when the baby cries and cries, the bunny tiptoes into the nursery and does all those special things until the baby falls asleep. No longer pretending, the bunny says "I love my baby." Layne's narration captures the anger, jealousy, and finally love the bunny feels for his sibling. Have the books available to accompany the recording since the wonderful illustrations enhance the texts.—Mary Jean Smith, Southside Elementary School, Lebanon, TN