I'm Getting a Checkup

I'm Getting a Checkup
Written by Marilyn Singer and illustrated by David Milgrim
Clarion Books, c2009. 32 pages. Nonfiction picture book.

I'm Getting a Checkup is a good choice for nervous first timers. David Milgrim's illustrations are perfectly suited to the subject matter. They are sweet cartoons with not overly-bright colors, and have a calming effect. A bonus is that the characters are all culturally diverse and always smiling. The mischievous bunnies in every scene bring comic relief- especially when they start making exam-glove balloons. Marilyn Singer has a gift for simple rhymes and child-friendly language. However, on the opposite page from each little poem is a paragraph (sometimes quite long) explaining medical procedures. It feels disjointed. This is the one fault with this book, as no child wants to hear that the arm band so sweetly and rhythmically described before is actually a blood-pressure cuff called a "sphygmomanometer." Perhaps these sections could have been made into a second book.