Sun Wishes
by Patricia Storms ; illus. by Milan Pavlović
Preschool, Primary     Groundwood    32 pp.     g
5/22     978-1-77306-450-5     $18.99
e-book ed.  978-1-77306-451-2    $16.99

“If I were the sun, I would sing a gentle morning song,” begins Storms and Pavlović’s ( Moon Wishes ) second collaboration, which invites readers to ponder what they might see and do if they were the sun. Storms’s meditative, poetic text contrasts with Pavlović’s lively mixed-media illustrations, creating a bracing whole. Writer and artist each demonstrates deliberation and care in their choices. Storms respects young readers’ intelligence with juicy vocabulary ( jubilant , vivid , tapestry , revel , luminous ). Pavlović feeds their curiosity with specific imagery. A variety of people and creatures that are seemingly leading interesting, full lives are depicted in particular landscapes: a bear catches fish; people go sledding and make snow angels; etc. Almost every illustration is a color-filled double-page spread that includes enough detail and suggests enough activity to be its own story, which is exactly what the sun would see as it goes about its day—story after story after story. The sun’s day is technically never done, but parents of young children won’t mind the ­closing suggestion that the sun “would rest peacefully at the end of a busy day…knowing tomorrow I would shine once more.”

From the September/October 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.