What's your name?

"Everyone has one.../ or maybe a few.// So what's in a name?/ What does it do?" Deeney Murguia explores the utility of names in this picture book of appellative connection. Energetic, consistently metered and rhymed lines ("A name is a meeting,/ a greeting,/ a call.// A name looks for comfort/ after a fall") alternate with group images of beings using their names. In an appealingly muted color palette, a community portrayed with varied abilities, ages, body types, and skin tones offers greetings to each other and to various animals, including a duck and a dog. As the pages turn, prose touches on how names (printed in red text throughout) can be used in different scenarios, signify important ties, and even evolve over time. It's a moving exploration of what names can be and do--one that ends with an open invitation: "What's yours?" Ages 3--7. (Nov.)

What's in a name? According to this thought-provoking conversation sparker, lots--more than readers probably realized. Names are fraught with meaning and spring from varied sources. As narrated in jaunty verse and clarified through speech bubbles, this spirited offering invites children to discover, ponder, and discuss fascinating things about names--their own and those of parents, family members, friends, neighbors, and others, even pets. Many kids may never have thought about names this way. They will learn names aren't just personal identifiers, but also have functions. Names can be familiar or unique. They can honor people from history or pay homage to seasons, weather, birthplaces, and birth times. What if our names don't suit us? We can "try new names, or add on a bit, / give them a whirl, and see how they fit"--as in the scene depicting a light-skinned child wearing a tutu who adds an A to their name (turning Louis to Louisa) and looks admiringly in a mirror. Perhaps this book's greatest strengths are its cheery declarations, portrayals of diversity--in race, ethnicity, attire, and physical ability (a child fingerspells their name in ASL)--and depictions of respectful camaraderie and pride in being unabashedly oneself, expressed through text and charming illustrations, created with traditional printmaking methods and assembled digitally. Grown-ups should absolutely encourage lively post-reading discussion with kids--and note the characters' final question ("what's yours?"); response guaranteed! (This book was reviewed digitally.) What's a name for this richly satisfying book? Winner. (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.