Ladybug Girl without her trademark antenna and wings? Only briefly, when she's taking a pre-bedtime bath ("Bubbles make really good beards," she tells her ever-present dog, Bingo). Soman and Davis let ...

The value of imaginative, free-form play has always been a key element of the Ladybug Girl books, and Soman and Davis emphasize it even more in this outing, which centers around a play date between ...