cover image Choose Your Days

Choose Your Days

Paula S. Wallace. Cinco Puntos (Consortium, dist.), $17.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-94102-637-3

Nebraska-based artist Wallace quietly exhorts readers to make the most of their time on Earth as she follows a girl named Corky from her birth to the other end of her lifespan. Wallace's language and imagery can be both playful and enigmatic%E2%80%94this is a story that challenges readers to think, rather than hitting them over the head with obvious messages and directives. After Corky is born, she is visited by Old Bear, "keeper of time and keys," and a deity of sorts. He leaves her with a "calendar for all of her days," lists to be filled with dreams and actions, and some advice: "Choose your days, make them sunny or gray." Wispy paintings chart Corky's growth in a lovely sequence of pages that shows her riding tricycles and bicycles as she ages into an elderly woman with a kerchief and cane. She asks Old Bear for more time, "For work undone. For play postponed. For music unsung," and while she doesn't appear to get any additional time, she does eke out a few last adventures. It's never too late, Wallace suggests, until it is. Ages 3%E2%80%937. (Apr.)