DO YOU KNOW WHAT I’LL DO?

A big sister lovingly promises to bring her little brother flowers when flowers grow again, a shell to hold the sound of the sea, a bottle of captured wind to open on a hot day, and other treasures, some more emotional than concrete as in, “I’ll remember my dreams and tell them to you.” Steptoe (In Daddy’s Arms I Am Tall, 1997) illustrates Zolotow’s 1958 text with rich collages constructed from pieces of painted plywood, cloth, ribbon, dried flowers, and other materials, brushing lines of yellow around dark brown limbs and facial features to add definition and draw the viewer’s eye to subtly curving lips or eyes. Unlike such antiphonal classics as Margaret Wise Brown’s Runaway Bunny (1942) or Sam McBratney’s Guess How Much I Love You (1994), there is only one voice here and so, less character interplay. But there’s a lot to look at and young readers and listeners will find themselves wrapped in the same warm intimacy. And it ends, properly, with a hug. (Picture book. 5-8)