Listen

In short, lyrical selections, McGhee invites young readers to listen, look, breathe, taste, and dig in the natural world, highlighting the ways in which sensory reflexes and experiences unite people: “Smell the air./ My air is yours and all of ours,/ your air is mine.” Other lines celebrate the elemental, communal connections that support life (“The food you eat/ is also the sun/ is also the rain”). In Lemaître’s art, a child wanders through a softly hued, scribbled landscape, listening to feet walking, viewing the stars; in a near-final spread, the child kneels, heart open and reverberating beyond the traditional physical senses (“Listen/ with your heart”). A thoughtful offering, expressed in subtle poetic tempo, about shared humanity and the nourishing world. Ages 4–7. [em](Sept.) [/em]