DEAR CHILD

There are three families in this terribly earnest picture book: a single dad with a blonde child, a blonde and Asian female pair with an Asian adopted child, and a black couple where the dad is dark, the mom café au lait and the child a color between. It rhymes, often clunkily, and it is nearly always clichéd: “Dear child, / I never knew / clouds were so beautiful, / the sky so blue.” Parents and children, clearly neighbors, go to parties, shop, build a snowman and go camping as the pictures flow through the year, “Dear, sweet child, / you make time stand still. / I love you this moment, / and I always will.” The illustrations are round and rosy, a match for the even goopier sentimental text. (Picture book. 3-6)