Painting the sky with love A celebration of love and community

It's raining hearts in this gladdening work featuring a young person who "painted the sky with love." The first ripples begin when a child portrayed with light brown skin arrives at a city park and initiates play with others, first brushing a rainbowlike ribbon of color overhead alongside red hearts that "flitted and twirled and fell in the air." Ambling through the park's green meadows, pathways, and zoo, the child observes a trio of musicians and admires ladybugs, birds, and clouds before heading home to a content and peaceful bedtime tuck-in. As the youth spreads kindness, Haque's envisaging text ("Hearts dropped on trains and muffled their sound") and Gardel's loosely rendered portraits deliver the message that putting love into the world yields an enormous return. Background characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 2--5. (Nov.)

A child imagines painting love that rains down like hearts touching the world. With a paintbrush aimed at the sky, a child streams pink, purple, and yellow beams from a wand. Bright red hearts flutter and fall, touching everything the child sees: hills, trees, zoo animals, a group of musicians in the park, birds in a nest, and of course the child and caregiver. The book has a meaningful message about the reach and spread of acts of love, with the child continuing to find and share love. The final two lines of each group of four rhyme, but this pattern makes for a disappointingly awkward read-aloud. Still, the illustrations, featuring people of varying skin tones, hair styles, ages, and abilities, are a delight. The child is drawn with light brown skin and dark brown hair, while the caregiver has brown skin and black hair. The tricolored ribbon of love is a consistent presence throughout the book, and the hearts appear like butterfly wings. This representation of love really brings the concept of "painting love" to life in a way that little readers will be able to visualize. The final images of the child cradling the globe and snuggling with the caregiver bring home the idea of just how much love we hold and how far it can reach if we share it. Bumpy text saved by touching illustrations.(Picture book. 2-4) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.