cover image Everything Will Be OK

Everything Will Be OK

Anna Dewdney, illus. by Judy Schachner. Viking, $18.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-593-20663-8

Fans of the Llama, Llama series will find the late Dewdney’s characteristic rhymes on display in this book about keeping perspective on life’s challenges. Whether it’s a stubbed toe, a lost kite, or a bad dream, reiterative, gently upbeat prose reassures readers that “everything will be OK” and prompts them to take comfort in family and friends. “Days are happy./ Days are sad.// Hold your mommy./ Hold your dad.// Whatever happens,/ love will stay.// Hold the ones you love today./ Everything will be OK.” Skippyjon Jones series creator Schachner employs a quilt-like range of colors and techniques—watercolor, acrylic, gouache, collage—in homey illustrations that conceptualize the story of a fluffy brown bunny navigating daily ups and downs with a small blue feline, making for a sympathetic water-under-the-bridge tale. Ages 2–5. (Feb.)