What love looks like

Obuobi pens a whimsical bedtime tale featuring Afia, a Black girl resistant to falling asleep "when the June evening sky made the world seem wide awake." Instead of tucking in, Afia calls out to Papa, asking him what love looks like. When he suggests finding out, "a gentle wind twirled Afia and her papa," first to a warm desert, then to a chilly mountaintop, and then to a seashore and a forest. Each landscape offers an experience of affection, from the desert's "skin-tingling touch of love" to the mountain's "delightfully cool taste of love." Cunha's expressive colorblock art portrays each background with hazy detail, giving a dreamlike quality to her rosy-cheeked characters' journey. And when the two head home with new knowledge about what love looks like, they're certain too in the knowledge that "love looks like you and me." Ages 4--8. (June)

At bedtime, Afia, a young Black girl, is kept awake by a burning question: "Papa, what does love look like?" Papa leads her on a fantastical journey to a desert, mountaintop, seashore, and a forest, finding intimations of love in nature's offerings. But only the realization that her bond with her father is the truest form of love brings her peace. Scumbled, painterly illustrations capture the liminal space between dozing and daydreaming. A tender portrayal of Black fatherhood. (c) Copyright 2025. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.