Someone Like Me

Musings about the sky attend a young speaker’s family move “somewhere far,/ somewhere new” in McGhee and Aly’s wistful picture book. “I’m looking up on a/ hot summer night,/ moon and stars/ the only light./ Will they still shine as bright/ once we’re out of sight?” wonders the protagonist while traveling beneath the stars. Upon arriving at “another land, another sky,/ where different clouds/ go floating by,” the speaker discovers that even in a new place there might be the potential for new bonds. A forlorn feeling infuses inquisitive, yearning lines (“Is there someone like me/ who wants to know/ what happens to things that disappear?”), while mixed-media and digitally collaged illustrations capture the story’s emotive elements with sooty shading and thick charcoal-like outlining. It’s a pensive story about weathering change that suggests looking up as a means to finding connection. Ages 3–7. (June)