HUMBLE AND KIND

The lyrics of the multiaward-winning country song become captions to describe acts and moments in the lives of a loving biracial family.

Blackmore visually elaborates on cues and values in McKenna’s unchanged verses to create a loosely connected storyline in which three biracial children, with their White mother and Black father, attend church (“ ’cause your momma says to”), visit their grandpa (who is Black), share a root beer Popsicle, and wave American flags as a small-town parade goes by, among other activities. In line with the chorus—“Always stay humble and kind”—they treat their neighbors and particularly one another with (usually) unforced courtesy and respect. The line “Know the difference between sleepin’ with someone, / and sleepin’ with someone you love” is rendered innocuous with a picture of the parents snoozing in a hammock as their children hang out contentedly below. Some of the lyrics are likewise stretched, though to benign purpose, in the co-published (Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay, written by Otis Redding and Steve Cropper, illustrated with stylized, geometric San Francisco scenes by Kaitlyn Shea O’Connor, and featuring here a solitary cat whose hunger and loneliness both end when a young Black child arrives with a fish and companionably stays to watch “the tide roll away, ooh yeah.” Music is not supplied, but spoken or sung, the words in both outings make better fits with the pictures than in most pop-song crossovers.

A harmonious outing.