SATURDAYS ARE FOR STELLA

George loses his grandmother but gains a baby sister in this touching picture book about family connections.

“George loved Saturdays. Saturdays were for Stella,” George’s grandmother, a Black woman with a short, curly white Afro. Whether they spend the day out—at the park or the museum, or doing fun things downtown—or stay in and play and bake, days with Stella are filled with fun and love. One Saturday, however, the bespectacled brown-skinned boy is ready for his day with Stella, but he finds his parents (a Black man and a White woman) crying. They explain that he won’t be seeing Stella again. “From then on, George hated Saturdays.” His favorite things become reminders of sadness and loss. But his parents are preparing for something—his mother is pictured in a maternity dress—and one day, a new Stella appears in his life: a brown baby with a light Afro. With baby Stella in his life, Saturdays become as much fun as they once were; George shows Stella everything he learned from his grandmother. This lovely story uses repetition and charming detail to celebrate life’s cycles and family connections that never end. The text and cheerful pictures work together to capture the warmth and comfort of togetherness as well as the gloom of loss, which, the story assures readers, needn’t last forever.

A beautiful story of remembering the departed by passing on traditions.