Jamal's Busy Day

The charm of this unassuming, engaging picture book rests in the tongue-in-cheek parallels between the daily labors of parents and offspring. The youngster here is an African American only child; the adults are active, serious professionals--father is an architect, mother an accountant. In its own way, Jamal's day is as demanding as theirs: he "works with numbers" in math class, does "research" in the library, has "meetings to attend" in the school auditorium and occasionally settles schoolyard "disagreements between my co-workers.