I Feel Safe

Jolted awake by a thunderstorm, a frightened child is soothed by each member of their extended Black family in this centering picture book. After the child wakes and two pets leap off the bed, “my mother comes in to comfort me” and “my father carries me to the front porch,” where they watch the lightning as a performance (“It’s okay to be scared sometimes,” the father adds). “My grandmother” lights candles when the power goes out, and “my grandfather” leads a family sing-along. “I feel safe,” the child says after each act of loving reassurance, and then pays that feeling forward: when the family dog and cat can’t be found, the child spots them, then “I hug them and tell them they are safe now.” There’s an ever-deepening, lullaby-like rhythm at work in the concise, unadorned prose, and single-plane pen, ink, and watercolor art supplies soft textures and colors that radiate a subtle glow. As the child falls asleep under now-clear skies, “feeling safe,” McPhail’s (I Am Just Right) final line invites readers to make the story their own: “What makes you feel safe?” Storms come and go, but love is constant in this portrait of familial closeness. Ages 3–6. Agent: Faith Hamlin, Sanford J. Greenburger Assoc. (Aug.)