From: Christine Hill <chill>
Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 10:43:43 -0400

I was delighted to see Joyce Carol Thomas' You Are My Perfect Baby honored, but I liked her 1998 book Cherish Me even more. A poem of one line per page, like You Are My Perfect Baby, it celebrates an African American girl's physical beauty with lyricism and subtlety. When the last page commands "Cherish me." the reader feels the imperative is absolutely justified. It is one of Harper Festival's Growing Tree series and I think HarperCollins is to be commended for the overall excellence of these books for toddlers. An excellent original board book series which I don't feel has gotten enough reviewer attention is Sara Hines-Stephens' Bean books, with illustrations by her mother, Anna Grossnickle Hines. Generally with only two words per page, the interplay of text and pictures is amazingly resonant and often laugh out loud funny. Christine M. Hill Willingboro Public Library One Salem Road Willingboro, NJ 08046 chill at willingboro.org My new book! Robert Ballard: Oceanographer Who Discovered the Titanic, Enslow, 1999
Received on Thu 11 May 2000 09:43:43 AM CDT