JoAnn Early Macken

 

CCBC Choices is a best-of-the-year list created annually by the librarians of the Cooperative Children's Book Center. CCBC Choices 2022 recommends 273 books published in 2021 for children from birth through high-school age.

"Dappled illustrations and vivid text highlight growth in the natural world." Kirkus Reviews gives Grow a lovely review:

"Mighty oaks from little acorns grow."

When young children and their parents and grandparents explore the woods, fields, and waterways, they ponder "what if." What if you were an acorn, caterpillar, tadpole? Step by step, the answers explain the development of these offspring to maturity. "If you were an acorn, you'd swing from a stout twig, snug inside a hard brown shell, bristled cap on your head." The acorn drops, cracks open, and grows until it becomes "an oak tree, reaching lobed leaves toward sunlight." Strong word choices allow a caterpillar to "button [itself] to a leaf," a turtle hatchling to shed "old scutes," and a duckling to "forage in foliage [and] dabble upended." The final "what if" describes the personal journey of a baby to adulthood and spotlights the book's diverse families, which include an interracial same-sex couple, two grandparent-led families, and three headed by single parents. Each child's journey has stretched from days "snug in a blanket" to "splash[ing] in the shallows like turtles and ducks" and "leav[ing] your dear footprints wherever you go." Gentle illustrations feature green for growth and locate all the families in different parts of the same woodland. The final illustration brings the story full circle as the White child encountered first poses before an oak tree, arms stretched up toward sunlight. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-17-inch double-page spreads viewed at 32.3% of actual size.)

Dappled illustrations and vivid text highlight growth in the natural world. (Picture book. 3-6)

"This book will be special to use on long nature walks with a class or your own children or grandchildren...."

--Linda B

"Lively, lyrical, and lovely..."
Sandy Brehl

"A beautiful read aloud and great for any simple nature units for preschoolers."

--Joanna Marple