Please, Papa

K-Gr 2—Alice is making a farm in her room. She asks her mother for a pig and then for chickens, and Mama provides them only when the child says, "Please." But when she asks for a horse, her mother replies that she doesn't have one. The accompanying pictures show a menagerie that includes an elephant, cats, a panda, birds. When Papa comes home and Alice asks him for a horse, he puts her on his shoulders and they romp around. Papa gets tired, quits the game, and Alice sulks. "Then the horse turned and looked at her." On two spreads, Papa is now depicted as a literal white horse. When Alice finally gives in and lets him rest, he's back to his human self. On the last spread, Alice feeds a cake to the animals in her bedroom. The setting, people, and costumes in the lush paintings have a Victorian look, and the human faces resemble porcelain dolls. This title is clearly a lesson in manners, but the illustrations are too confusing to gain a large audience.—Ieva Bates, Ann Arbor District Library, MI