My Working Mom

From Publishers Weekly This gigglesome picture book about a "working mom" who's a witch fairly bursts with luminous illustrations, riotous counterparts to the deadpan text. Not that Glassman ( The Wizard Next Door ) wants to put too much color into his narrative--statements made by the narrator (the career mom's chatty daughter) could apply to any family, while the slapstick-y pictures are meant as the giveaway. Here, the mother's chemistry set includes a glowing caldron into which she tosses flies and green goo, and on Career Day she upstages other rather weird parents (among them a Frankenstein and the Creature from the Black Lagoon) by taking her daughter's classmates on a broom ride. Witchery and home life often mingle, as when the girl claims that her mother sometimes "yells at me for playing with something she's working on"--while an illustration shows her enjoying a game of badminton with an enormous frog. Arnold's ( Green Wilma ) punchy watercolor and colored-pencil pictures seem lit from within, and his lizards, mice and assorted creepy-crawlies are endearing rather than slimy; if this book rates low on the fun-to-read scale, its fun-to-look-at level is through the roof. Ages 3-up. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From School Library Journal Kindergarten-Grade 3-Zany cartoon drawings tell the real story of this working mom who experiments in her lab, flies off to meetings, and makes weird dinners. For this woman is a witch, an occupation that has its up side when it comes to giving out-of-this world birthday parties and doing her thing during parents' day at school. The fun is all in the bright, colorful pictures that give meaning to the simple text; without them, there would be no story at all. Cauldrons, toads, salamanders, and bats are all here, and are all the more hilarious because they appear in the midst of a traditional suburban household. Youngsters will go back to this one again and again, each time finding new details to laugh over.