Night Night Baby Bundt: A Recipe for Bedtime and Splish Splash, Baby Bundt: A Recipe for Bathtime are attractively-illustrated board books by Jamie Harper that mine a recipe-style format for laughs and great story structure. I evaluated them myself before I showed them to Z. Sweet, intelligent and amusing was my assessment. Then came the true critic: the four-year-old. Z is in that place age-wise - no longer a toddler, not yet a big kid - where it is sometimes hard to figure what will appeal to her. However, both Baby Bundt books hit the spot!

Z loves to cook, and and her parents love to make lists, and these activities gave Z a great introduction to the "recipe method" of bath time and nighttime rituals. To get a squeaky clean baby you have to assemble the ingredients before you can begin the bath. First ingredient is one sticky (adorable) Baby Bundt. A fun and patient big sister shows the steps to cleaning baby one page at a time. One sticky baby bundt is mixed with lots of toys, soap, and more toys and more soap. Cute big sister helps with the washing (and the playing) until Baby Bundt is sparkling clean!

Bedtime rituals take own whole new levels of cuteness in the Night Night Baby Bundt book. A cup of kisses, a lost blanket, ten tasty toes, a bed lined with cuddly toys, and a sprinkling of pacifiers makes for a great nesting place for the tiny sleepy baby. Again, one very delightful big sister is instrumental in helping baby Bundt have a wonderful night’s sleep - a level of responsibility for a cuddly baby that is the stuff of fantasy for four-year-old girls.

Harper has published four Baby Bundt books so far, and thanks to her delightfully fresh illustrations, she could easily produce more without the format wearing thin. Recommended for kids ages two to six. - Karen