BUT NOT PIPER

In Gardella’s picture book, a happy little girl marches to the beat of her own drummer.

In this lighthearted story, a bubbly little girl named Piper is comfortable being different from her parents and three siblings. And her family is also just fine with Piper not being like everyone else. Her two brothers and older sister bop to rap; Piper prefers to pirouette to Chopin and jeté to Tchaikovsky. They play in T-shirts and shorts; Piper wears a ruffly skirt and leggings. And while her siblings are engaged in noisy fun at Miller’s Pond, scaring bullfrogs and splattering each other with mud, Piper sits peacefully, “fashioning critters from cattails and seed pods and grass.” The nonjudgmental tone of the story, clearly expressed without being put into words, is reinforced by Fabian’s appealing, full-page, watercolorlike digital illustrations, which highlight Piper’s contentment and sheer enjoyment of being herself. The narrative has an unintentional misstep: When Piper’s siblings get stuck in the mud at the pond, Piper hurries home, but a scene in which she informs her parents of their plight is missing, inadvertently suggesting a darkly humorous spin on Piper’s attitude toward her siblings. Fortunately, the mud-covered trio, apparently rescued by their similarly muddy father, appear back home a page later.

A buoyant message of familial love and acceptance, despite an oversight in the telling.