THE IMPOSSIBLE PATRIOTISM PROJECT

Caleb wishes his dad were home to help with his Parents’ Night/President’s Day patriotism project, but right now dad is far away—in military service. Caleb’s eager classmates have project plans aplenty: maps, poems, a Statue of Liberty costume, even a papier-mâché Liberty Bell. Caleb’s good at drawing, but “Patriotism wasn’t something you could draw. . . . ” After struggling for an idea, Caleb creates a poster display featuring a photo of his father in full military gear and delivers a touching statement: Sometimes “Patriotism means going away from your family even if you have to miss Parents’ Night . . . My dad is patriotism.” The assembled are duly impressed, and in an affecting final page, Hoyt offers a sort of split-screen vignette of the child and his father, one sending mementoes of the day, the other on a camp stool, happy to have been remembered and recognized. Not a must-have, but a conversation-starter—of particular interest to service families and their communities. (Picture book. 5-9)