CLOUDS

Images in clouds inspire memories.

Written in rhyming couplets, this love letter from a mother to her nearly grown daughter recounts the key moments of childhood that help define the personality of the girl. Each moment is inspired by the sight of clouds passing by overhead on the mother’s walk. Illustrations combine lush, painterly backgrounds representing the real world and cartoon drawings for the memories of childhood that the mother imagines within the clouds. The juxtaposition of styles draws readers’ eyes naturally to the imagined characters with paper-white skin and hair frolicking in the sky without detracting from the real-world representation of the White-presenting mother. The busy compositions may become muddled for large group storytimes but will function adequately with small groups and best with intimate lap reads. The text doesn’t keep pace with the stylized illustrations, the couplets often stumbling to rhyme as such combinations as home / alone or become / young are shoehorned together. Readers may wonder why this mother isn’t spreading the love to her sons, depicted in the memories. In fact, the audience for this nostalgic picture-book ode to the vanished childhood of a kid who is revealed to be a young teen is unclear. A gratuitous three-page endnote explaining the sincerity of the story is as effective as someone explaining why a joke is funny; it’s unnecessary icing on an already-too-sweet tale. (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Pure saccharine.