It's Monday, Mrs. Jolly Bones! by Warren Hanson (review)

In this rollicking ballad, Mrs. Jolly Bones is a woman who keeps a serious housekeeping schedule-in her own peculiar way. Monday is for doing laundry, which concludes with throwing all the clothes out the window; Tuesday's gardening ends with a garden-wrecking dance ("Then polka through the posy patch and make those flowers fly!"); Wednesday's housecleaning culminates in a toilet-bowl bath, etc. Finally Sunday comes, and a blissful day of rest comes to a celebratory finale ("Then yodel until midnight with a chicken in your lap!"). Hanson writes with an appealingly larky joie de vivre; the combination of drudgery and absurdity is amusing, and the crisp scansion makes the verse dance. Though the abundance of dark-lined elements (offset only by delicate, pale touches of watercolor) overbusies some scenes, Tusa's scrabbly outlining and rich detailing expand on the text's chaotic humor: Mrs. Jolly Bones is gleefully kooky the entire time, sharing her house with amiable livestock (who line up politely for their turn as Mrs. Jolly Bones bathes), ironing her clothes with the teapot, and creating a humongous birthday cake in a wheelbarrow. Kids will adore the transgressive joy of dutiful housekeeping gone silly; just don't ask them to help clean up afterwards.