When I Move
by Carole Boston Weatherford; illus. by Alea Marley
Preschool, Primary    Union Square    40 pp.
4/25    9781454945543    $18.99

This is a picture book tailor-made for storytime: Weatherford’s succinct first-person text makes great use of repetition, as well as end rhymes that beg for children’s voices to complete. Well-paced page-turns at the line breaks in each sentence heighten anticipation at each beat in the rhythm. The book’s first lines read: “When I swim, / I become a fish. / When I jump, / I become a wish.” Marley’s illustrations follow the text, moving from a concrete depiction of a Black girl swimming at the shore with a parent to a more imaginative depiction of her swimming underwater with outlined fish sketched around her; showing the same child jumping at the park, then against a fantastical background of stars and foliage as she leaps through the air, no ground visible beneath her feet. The style combines the retro feel of art by Gyo Fujikawa or Aliki with a contemporary flair. Words and pictures combine to embrace the whole child, moving her body and moving through life—outdoors, inside, at home, at school. The repeating pattern of the refrain (“When I…, / I become…”) infuses the narration with possibility, and pictures meet that voice to present a confident, capable, joyful, creative Black girl, self-assured and in community with others. Celebratory and, yes, moving.

From the ">May/June 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.