You and I Are Stars and Night

Hosford’s melodious rhymes and Jones’s serene, soft-edged paintings highlight a caregiver and child’s grounding partnership in this lullaby-like story. Amid a village “fast asleep,” a caregiver presents a bathing child with a sailboat toy, while second-person narration invites, “Will you sail away with me?/ You and I are salt...// and sea.” As the companions venture forth, “You and I” becomes an iterative refrain that sees the duo’s connection expressed as common pairings (“boat and sail,” “fork and spoon,” “ebb and flow”). Meanwhile, their journey takes them through varied natural settings described via imagery-filled couplets (“Dive into the ocean spray/ and watch the baby mermaids play”). Employing dusty blues, purples, and pinks, the illustrations generate a dreamy effect, and concluding pages see the subjects’ adventuring shift into cuddles in this anchoring bedtime send-off. Characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 4–8. (Feb.)