YOU AND ME TOGETHER

The text is simple and comfortable: “Here we are, together. / Together, ME AND YOU . . . / Sharing. . . . ” Sharing many things—a joke, a mess or a meal, a ride or a dance in this lightly rhymed paean to children and their parents. Not only is it utterly reassuring, but it displays its gentle wisdom in unexpected ways. The duo sharing shade are a father and son practicing the trumpet, the pet being held is a baby goat, and “Seeing the SUN” happens through a white gold shaft of sunlight in a canyon, illuminating mother and daughter. The photographs are all sourced and identified at the end, with a world map so eager readers can locate each—and they are full of surprises, too. The chocolate-colored mother and daughter dressed in saffron robes live in Staten Island in New York; the Gypsy/Rom family is camped in Italy. An unalloyed pleasure from the author of Walt Whitman (2004). (lengthy note from Marian Wright Edelman) (Picture book. 3-8)