cover image The Sky Is the Limit: A Celebration of All the Things You Can Do

The Sky Is the Limit: A Celebration of All the Things You Can Do

Lisa Swerling, illus. by Ralph Lazar. Chronicle, $14.99 (60p) ISBN 978-1-4521-7982-7

Swerling and Lazar collaborate once again on this diminutive, glittery book that cheers readers on through small accomplishments and major milestones alike. “A world full of wonder/ is waiting for you...// The sky is the limit/ of what you can do!” begins Swerling, taking readers through a list of activities in rhyming verse (“Backs to be scratched/... plans to be hatched”). Lazar’s stick figure illustrations, accented in neon and scrawled with a range of expression, bring movement and energy to one-dimensional spreads of all-white characters. The book runs several beats too long, resulting in an exhaustive litany of peppy suggestions that meander from the vague (“There are roads to be traveled// and dreams to unfold”) to the specific (“Cakes to be gobbled/ and spoons to be licked”) and sometimes puzzling (“friends to be tricked”). All ages. [em](Mar.) [/em]