ALL WE NEED IS LOVE AND A REALLY SOFT PILLOW!

We all need love, but is it all we need?

Poppy is large, fluffy, and blue, with hefty striped arms and big, owlish eyes. Little One is a teeny ball of pink fuzz, with smaller striped arms, little legs, and huge eyes. In a barren landscape of abstract orange circles, the two agree: “Love is all we need.” (One thing they don’t need: clothes.) Immediately, however, Little One begins to propose material additions: a really soft pillow or two, then, in short order, a roof, walls, water, chocolate, a bathtub, a cooking pot, a vegetable garden and a fruit tree, books, a toilet, and, of course, love. As each item appears, Poppy greets it enthusiastically, praising Little One’s cleverness but insisting that now they need nothing more for a “sweet and simple” life. Then a storm batters them, blowing everything away. Grabbing Little One, Poppy clings to a deep-rooted tree. They are safe, and again they have nothing except love—though Little One, snuggling into Poppy’s back, still has a really soft pillow. This book, with its fanciful creatures in their flat, isolated space, will provoke questions about what is truly “essential,” not just in material terms. The duo needed strength, perseverance, optimism, and courage, at least—something the authors never acknowledge. Realists will note other needs. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A minimalist pair-bonding fable only for dedicated fans of Peter H. Reynolds.