The Boss Baby.

Frazee, Marla (author). Illustrated by Marla Frazee.
Aug. 2010. 40p. Simon & Schuster/Beach Lane, hardcover, $16.99 (9781442401679). K-Grade 2.
REVIEW. First published July, 2010 (Booklist).

Starring an imperious infant in a Wall Street–worthy, suit-style onesie, this farcical picture book has fun with the ubiquitous jokes that the baby is the boss in any household. The tot lays down the law from the minute a taxi drops him at his parents’ door. With a giant briefcase in tow, the tyrannical executive schedules round-the-clock “meetings” (diaper changes and feedings, as the pictures reveal) until he grinds his beleaguered team into unresponsive exhaustion. How does he prod them back to work? With his first “Ma-ma” and “Da-da,” of course. Paired with perfectly timed, deadpan text, Frazee’s artwork is as slyly comic and artfully expressive as ever, but all the business-world in-jokes, such as the spread featuring the baby’s “executive perks” (including baby-bottle cocktails), feel targeted more toward weary parents than a picture-book audience. Even if they don’t get every reference, though, kids (especially older siblings) may enjoy the silliness in the images as well as the underlying truths about how a baby’s arrival changes a family. Simon James’ Baby Brains (2004) offers a more kid-friendly spin on the superadvanced-baby story.

— Gillian Engberg