In the Wind

Spurr's earlier board books (In the Garden and At the Beach, both 2012; In the Woods,  2013) featured an adventuresome little boy. Her new slice-of-life story  stars an equally joyful little girl who takes pleasure in flying a new  kite while not venturing far off the walkway. Oliphant's expressive and  light-filled watercolors clearly depict the child's emotions—eager  excitement on the way to the park, delight at the kite's flight in the  wind, shock when the kite breaks free, dejection, and finally relief and  amazement. The rhymes work, though uneven syllable counts in some  stanzas interrupt the smooth flow of the verse. The illustrations depict  the child with her mass of windblown curls, brown skin, and pronounced  facial features as African-American. Her guardian (presumably her  mother) is also brown-skinned. It is refreshing to see an  African-American family settled comfortably in a suburban setting with  single-family homes and a park where the family dog does not need to be  leashed.

Unobtrusive rhymes on every other page flow easily off the tongue. The  simple, direct language mirrors language patterns of very young  children, with one clear idea per page. One stanza says, “Water flows. /  Make a boat. // Sail in stream. / Off it floats.” Accompanying pictures  of a gutter downspout, a leaf boat, and the rivulet made by water from  the gutter hint at details to come and will inspire conversation and  simple science explorations. Is the water coming from the rain or from  the garden hose lying in the grass? And who will use that hose later?  Muted colors match the rainy day until the sun breaking through the  clouds reveals a brilliant rainbow that fades at dusk. Where exactly all  this takes place is open to interpretation. It could be a modest city  neighborhood, a suburb, or a small town. What matters is that this bit  of nature is right outside this young black girl’s home. Her glee as she  stomps in puddles with her dog is palpable. That her mother seems to  share her delight is refreshing. 

Here, he delights in a day at the  beach. One, two or three words on each page make up the rhyming text:  “Sun Sky / Shore Boy // Sand Pail / Spade Toy.” The youngster makes a  sand birthday cake with his shovel and pail, but an inevitable wave  destroys it. His mother, nearby, comforts him with a picnic lunch and a  “Lap Nap” as he dreams of the sea. Oliphant’s soft drawings, which look  to be a mix of watercolor and colored pencil, capture the flow of sand  and water well, though beach-going children will wonder at the pair’s  solitude on this apparently perfect summer day.

Simple, evocative text and gorgeous artwork capture the delight of a  young, black girl upon waking to a thick cover of freshly fallen snow in  this beautifully designed board book. Together with her mother and her  dog, she puts in a full day of winter play: gliding across frozen  puddles, drawing in the snow, building a snowman, sledding, and, of  course, making snow angels. Oliphant’s illustrations are primarily  two-page scenes, occasionally broken up into separate, sequential  panels, with the text flowing beneath, one line of a rhymed couplet per  page. “Clouds glide over hills. / Snow falls. All is still. // Open  window. Shout, ‘Hooray!’ / Dash outside. Time to play!” The accompanying  illustrations convey the silent stillness of a pre-dawn snowfall as  well as the eager excitement of the girl and her canine companion at  their first glimpse of snow and as they race outside to revel in it.  Text and pictures flow smoothly from scene to scene and from one  activity to the next. The illustrations and their subject matter have a  beauty, realism, and simplicity that evoke another era and will surely  make caregivers nostalgic for the pleasures of their youths. Children,  meanwhile, should find this daylong romp in the snow exhilarating.