Publishers Weekly
10/25/2021
In affirming rhymes, Montez Minor offers an encouraging picture book comparing readers to the sun, the moon, and the stars in turn: “You are like the moon...// Just like the moon/ makes oceans rise and fall,/ your dreams will attract all who you call.” Metaphors throughout are intangible and slightly uneven, but Won expands upon each verse with soft, luminous digital spreads, mainly following three smiling children of varying skin tones with their families. The kids occasionally partake in fantastical, dreamlike activities, as in a spread where a brown-skinned child wearing pilot’s goggles rises into the air in a life-size model of their toy plane amid a shower of golden stars. The book’s light tone, emphasizing compassion and interconnectivity, makes this a fitting bedtime read. Ages 3–6. (Nov.)
From the Publisher
"Warm and bright...A lyrical ode to children." --Kirkus Reviews
"The book’s light tone, emphasizing compassion and interconnectivity, makes this a fitting bedtime read." --Publishers Weekly
Kirkus Reviews
2021-08-18
A lyrical ode to the children.
The speaker remains unidentified in second-person text, which addresses three children in turn as “you” while also implying child readers. Soft-focus illustrations lend specificity by placing each child in the context of family and interests. First is a child of color in a family that appears to be composed of an Asian father, White mother, Asian grandmother, and biracial younger sibling. The narrator assures the child that “You are like the sun… / rising every day / with your energy and light.” The illustrations depict the child in a bright yellow dress, singing and dancing for the family and then taking the stage before a crowd while yellow confetti falls from the sky and a white dove swoops overhead. Next is a blond, White child who is “like the moon… / sometimes full and big, / sometimes new and small.” This child is depicted as an animal lover doting on a family of kittens they find in a box and bring home to parents and two siblings, all of whom present as White. Finally, a Black-presenting child is likened to “the stars in the night sky, / lighting the way for all to see— / even on their darkest night.” This child wears aviator goggles and plays with a toy airplane as mother and father, both also Black, encourage their offspring’s interest by gazing at the sky as a family before the child takes flight. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Warm and bright. (Picture book. 2-5)
