The verse, punctuated by the word together, frequently set in oversized font, is gently inclusive at its best but may trip up readers with its irregular rhythms. Smart’s illustrations are playful and expressive, curating the most joyful moments of family life. One same-sex couple with two children in tow are expecting another child. In some, readers see only one caregiver: a father or a grandparent, perhaps. Subsequent pages show a wide array of families with members of many different racial presentations engaging in bike and bus rides, indoor dance parties, and more.
#NIGHT NIGHT FOREST FRIENDS BOOK SKIN#
The rhymed verse, based on a song from the Noodle Loaf children’s podcast, declares that “Families belong / Together like a puzzle / Different-sized people / One big snuggle.” The accompanying image shows an interracial couple of caregivers (one with brown skin and one pale) cuddling with a pajama-clad toddler with light brown skin and surrounded by two cats and a dog.
Although the wake-up motif is fairly fresh, it’s not enough to make this book top of the crop.įor settings that can’t get enough of farm-animal board booksįamilies in a variety of configurations play, dance, and celebrate together. Rhyming text identifies each animal and hints at its habits, with some artistic license: How sheep would open a gate, as they are urged to do, is unclear. The final illustration mimics the opening spread, with the animals in the fields and a yellow sun in the sky. This must be a free-range farm the second-to-last spread shows all the animals on both sides of a pasture fence. The surprising addition of llamas on the fourth spread is apt as domesticated llamas become more common in North America. Each spread features a standard farm animal: ducks, dogs, sheep, pigs, cows, horses, with chickens and a cartoonish rooster occupying two spreads. Subsequent pages employ the same muted palette in ever lighter shades. A dark red barn sits on a hill above gray-green rolling meadows. The first spread is quite dark, with a haloed sun that goes from beige to deep purple as the concentric arcs move up the page. Readers meet them as the sun rises over idyllic farm scenes rendered digitally in ink and paint. The twist in this offering, a follow-up to Night-Night Forest Friends (2013), is that initially the animals are asleep. Yet another board book designed to introduce farm animals to young children.
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