Review by Booklist Review
Budding bibliophiles will embrace this celebration of the pleasures of reading, in which a wide array of children sing the praises of their favorite book. Strolling in the rain, a girl holds an umbrella with one hand, snugly clutches a treasured tome with the other, and proudly announces, "This is my book. / My favorite book. / I carry it with me / wherever I go." A child totes their well-worn storybook in a backpack and fondly describes its signature lived-in features: "There's jam on the cover / from yesterday's toast / and crayon inside / from when I was little." A young bookworm reads aloud ". . . to the seventeen / worms in a jar." With great aplomb, Newbery Medalist Park's jaunty rhythmic verse captures the magic of the printed word to captivate ("I don't hear you call. / I can't come right now. / I'm too far away / in the world of my book."), comfort ("We read it together. / Again and again, / and, please, just once more?"), and inspire ("I know every word. / They're right here inside me. / I say them out loud / whenever I want"). Caldecott Medalist Raschka's bright and joyous watercolor illustrations offer a peek at pages from some of the children's personal picks (including a book in braille). A jubilant love song to literacy.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Newbery Medalist Park and two-time Caldecott Medalist Raschka celebrate the ways children shower their books with love--and what they get in return--in a picture book that catalogs reading's pleasures. In each spread, a child, painted in lush, loose, rounded strokes, describes the way volumes teach, feed, and free them. "This is my book," announces a young person who strides along beneath an umbrella, a book under a slicker-clad arm: "I carry it with me/ wherever I go." A page turn later, another describes a book with "jam on the cover/ from yesterday's toast/ and crayon inside/ from when I was little." Other spreads note the way books let readers create alternate selves ("I move like the characters"), recall language ("I know every word"), and offer escape ("I don't hear you call./ I can't come right now"). While the artwork expresses the children's passion in all its messy liveliness, the chorus of autonomous voices both persuades and invites: "Do you have a book?/ A favorite book?/ A book that you love/ the way I love mine?" Characters are portrayed with various abilities and skin tones. Ages 3--6. Author's agent: Ginger Knowlton, Curtis Brown. Illustrator's agent: Brenda Bowen, Book Group. (June)
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Review by Horn Book Review
Park and Raschka capture with deep understanding and admirable simplicity children's attachment to their favorite books. Each of Park's unpretentious nonrhyming quatrains is accompanied by a portrait of a different child, in Raschka's recognizable impressionistic style and harmonious colors. "This is my book. / My favorite book. / I carry it with me / wherever I go" features a young Black girl holding an umbrella and her book, striding through puddles on a rainy day. "I don't hear you call. / I can't come right now. / I'm too far away / in the world of my book" depicts a blind girl reading a book in braille, curled up on a rug with her cat. Other poems see a boy reading by soft light, tucked into bed at night with his stuffed animals; a girl absorbed in her book on a crowded subway; a boy in a wheelchair dressed up as his favorite character (a pirate). The total effect is warm and childlike; the diversity of children and experiences is welcome. Altogether a winning paean to childhood reading. Martha V. ParravanoMay/June 2024 p.125 (c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Stand aside, dogs. A book is a true best friend. "This is my book. My favorite book. I carry it with me wherever I go." A parade of different children grace these pages as we hear the myriad ways that they adore their own particular books. We see children reading with their grown-ups, to their pets, on the subway, and more. They're moved to dress up as beloved characters or memorize the words. Throughout, Caldecott winner Raschka includes two-page wordless spreads featuring scenes from some of these favorite books. Newbery winner Park's language has a rhythmic, lyrical quality. Though the words don't always rhyme, they have a cadence that's pleasing to the tongue ("This is my book. My favorite book. I wake and I take it. I sleep and I keep it"). Brightly colored watercolor art displays children diverse in terms of skin tone and ability. For all its earnestness, occasionally the art slips in a bit of wry humor for adults (as when a child discovers a "missing" book in a high, out-of-reach place, presumably put there by desperate grown-ups tired of endlessly reading this one aloud). Though it may be preaching to the choir, there's no denying the power of this paean to books and reading. With book banning on the rise, how comforting to read about the book as an object so worthy of adoration. (Picture book. 3-6) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
