Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Super Star Children's Book Review: Love

Welcome to the monthly children’s book review feature with a focus on diverse books here at Bird Meets Worm! My team of reviewers—Cara ChowJoan CharlesSharon Calle—and I are so excited to be championing books celebrating everything from gender diversity, people of color, the LGBTQ community to ethnic, cultural and religious minorities, people with disabilities and developmental challenges to controversial topics, unique family situations and anything and everything I did not include. It is to say we take a rightfully board view of diversity! We aim to shine a light on books that bring both familiar experiences to those who do not often see themselves represented in books and new experiences to those looking to expand their worldview. Here at Bird Meets Worm we believe in the power of story to build empathy and thus a better world for you and me and everyone. Look for a new review on the second Wednesday of every month.




LOVE
By Matt de la Peña • Illustrated by Loren Long
Picture Book (ages 4-8) • 40 pages
Published 2018 by G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Reader  • 2018
ISBN 978-1-524-74091-8


This beautifully crafted picture book celebrates love as a constant, beginning with the moment we come into the world, through times both good and bad, until we’re ready to set out on our own.

Matt de la Peña’s quietly lyrical prose poem shows that love helps us find hope, even in the darkest of times, as in the moment when a young girl is comforted by an old lady after a fire. “Stars shine long after they’ve flamed out,” she tells you, “and the shine they shine with is love.”

Love helps us find joy, in simple things like the rustling of leaves or in the family stories told by relatives.

Love brings us comfort, through something as simple as a hug and words of reassurance that everything will be okay.

Loren Long’s lovingly crafted illustrations of children and families are rendered in warm hues that subtly support the message of love in it’s many forms.

We need a book like this at a time like this, when love seems in short supply. Older children will find themselves drawn to the book again and again, sometimes for joy, sometimes for comfort, sometimes for reassurance, but always for love.

Buy this book:



Reviewed by: Joan Charles