DANDELIONS

A small girl is horrified to find her dad has mowed all the dandelions, which are her favorite flower.

Responding to her distress, Dad finds a patch near the house that escaped, and father and daughter blow the bits of fluff out in the world to parachute away. She imagines the dandelion seeds as they float past her yard’s roses, the poppies lining the street, and the sunflowers in the park. The pictures have a lyrical, summery quality, with Dad in his bare feet, the young narrator with floral dress, tumbled curls, and stripy leggings. (Both appear to be Caucasian.) Dad and daughter often appear in several poses across each spread, which gives a sense of movement to the pictures. The text meanders and climbs along paths and air currents, following the puff balls as they seed dandelions all over. The girl’s voice is rendered in long (and rather unchildlike) constructions perhaps meant to be poetic but often difficult to read aloud: she imagines dandelion fluff “turning in the wind under the oak tree canopies just out of town….” But the weed common over much of the world is cherished by this child and no doubt many readers, from its golden head to its puffball state, and the illustrations convey that prettily, along with the easy grace between father and daughter.

A sweet father-daughter duet.