This is a gift for you

PreS-Gr 1--This sweet list of "gifts" or wishes from parent to child is enhanced by lovely illustrations and spare text. There is really no story here. It is a poetic list: "The gift of quiet…/ And the gift of loud…/ Your hand in my hand/ Out in a crowd." The sentiment is genuine, though verging on saccharine, and the meter and rhyme mostly flow well. It sells appreciating the moment, being oneself, feeling safe, and caring about the world. Acrylic, gouache, and colored pencil illustrations are lovely, depicting a multicultural cast of children and their families reading, drawing, riding a train, playing outside, and visible through apartment windows. They are detailed and varied, from a close-up of two hands, to crisp items on a white background, to double-page scenes. There is a lovely bit of continuity, with a father giving his daughter a blue marble with the words "I'll give you this world like a lucky blue stone," and a later reference to the "blue stone" with a depiction of the earth in space. The nature images are particularly arresting, including a page that is full of butterflies. VERDICT While the text here will likely appeal more to parents than children, the sentiment is a worthy one to share, and the lovely illustrations will keep the children engaged. Add where Martin's other books are in demand.--Amy Lilien-Harper, Wilton Lib., CT

The best things in life aren't things…. Author/illustrator of the perennial bestseller The Wonderful Things You Will Be (2015), Martin has established herself as a picture-book maker with a talent for writing verses befitting sincere, heartfelt greeting cards. This title reaffirms that writerly gift in the best of ways as it delivers rhyming lines that describe simple pleasures and intangible treasures that define relationships and enrich a person's life. Sometimes the gouache illustrations depict people in comfortable companionship; other spreads show a solitary person engaged in an activity alone. Text reading, "So I'll give you this world / Like a lucky blue stone…. // The gift of alone… / And not-being-alone" is representative of the book as a whole. It never offers a narrative arc but instead presents images of racially diverse children and adults going about their days. Illustrating the aforementioned quatrain are a picture of Black-presenting adults transferring the stone from or to (it's open to interpretation) a small Black child and, on the next double-page spread, first a different Black child painting in solitude and then a ring of racially diverse children playing. This reference to "a lucky blue stone" is echoed in closing spreads with reference to the Earth itself, lending the book a sense of cohesion and underscoring its gentle message of unity and gratitude for the simple things in life, such as the very ground on which we stand, together. (This book was reviewed digitally.) Another gift of a book. (Picture book. All ages) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.