A GOOD NIGHT WALK

Cooper’s warm and energetic watercolor and ink pictures are more detailed than his usual here, but hold the same evocative engagement with his audience. A child and a parent—since the child is never pictured, the reader takes his or her place—take a walk down their block in the late summer evening. Cooper’s images flow along the line of their walk, each spread connecting to the next. A gardening neighbor sits on her red wheelbarrow beneath a huge oak tree, whose squirrels race across it to the next clothesline and that house’s bird feeder. A cat rests under an apple tree, whose owner is making pie. Lawns are mowed, burgers flipped. Readers see folks through their windows and on their porches. By the time it’s dark and the walkers retrace their steps, each activity has been completed and each family has settled inside. “And all we have seen, we will see again, when we walk along the block in the morning.” Cozy and friendly with lots to look at. (Picture book. 3-7)