What We'll Build

August 15, 2020
An adult and child gather tools and prepare for a future together. Some things they build are rife with symbolism, such as a shelter to store what they value (including some "love" they set aside) and futures they build for each other, depicted as a series of items in blue and pink waves that spring from a wristwatch. Others are more concrete, like the fortress they build to repel "enemies," whom they later invite in for tea and apologies. Some of what they build is fantastical (a road to the moon). The book is dedicated to the author's daughter and is considered a companion piece to Here We Are, published in 2017 and dedicated to his son, though the pair here could still be interpreted as having a different type of caretaker-child relationship. Camaraderie between the two is the thematic focus in this affectionate narrative. Portions of the text's meaning are somewhat vague (the two lie next to a fire that will "keep us warm like when we're born"), and the rhyming text, with moments of inconsistent meter, occasionally feels forced. Jeffers fills the pages with an odd, giggle-inducing assortment of creatures; the duo's former foes include a one-eyed pirate, a witch, a Viking, and (in a very poorly timed choice) a white-coated doctor with a surgical mask, and there are a friendly octopus and birds in space helmets. Adult and child both present White. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-19-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.) Though straining in spots, it has the offbeat, sweet style Jeffers' fans know and love. (Picture book. 4-9)

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September 7, 2020
In this standalone companion to Here We Are! that is dedicated to his daughter, Jeffers imagines a stream of fanciful projects that a father, sporting a wool hat, and his sailor dress–clad daughter might do together. Zooming in on her small hands, his large ones, and the tools they have both assembled, it’s clear that the narrator views the girl as a capable partner, despite her age—“Let’s build a door/ where there was none,// We’ll build a house/ to be our home.” He promises to keep her safe in “a place to stay when all is lost,/ to keep the things we love the most,” and he’s also up for daffy engineering projects: towers, tunnels, a road to the moon, all stroked in generous swaths of warm color and Jeffers’s signature childlike scribbles. In the story’s most developed episode, the two realize that building walls keeps potential friends out, and they open their fortress gates to admit a Viking, a pirate, a witch, and a lavender-colored surgeon. Jeffers’s benediction portrays a parent who surrounds his child with love and steadies her as she learns how to bring her dreams to fruition. Ages 4–8. Agent: Paul Moreton, Bell Lomax Moreton.

September 18, 2020

PreS-Gr 2-Two white protagonists-an adult male and juvenile female-sketch out their blueprint for the future. The result, more scaffold than story, embodies grand, archetypal themes through tangible objects. The constructed comforts of hearth and home, where even time bends to subjective will, serve as insulation against an antagonistic world. Still, that world can't be contained indefinitely; indeed, it must be acknowledged. Faced with marauders, witches, and dentists, conflict is inevitable, but dialogue and reconciliation can literally open gateways. When the beyond no longer seems so frightening, exploration beckons, and Jeffers' boundless, recurring preoccupations-space and sea-welcome intrepid travelers. The duo finally settles down to sleep, exhausted by their planning. If Jeffers's Here We Are addressed child rearing anxieties as much as it did the shared responsibility of terrestrial caretaking, then this book resolves this tension through solidarity. Jeffers's maiden voyage in verse floats despite wobble under scansion. Rosy-fingered pink and richly hued violet watercolors swirled with amber, auburn, mauve, and magenta imbue trademark artwork, and digital technology sharpens traditional media while weaving them together. Some spreads, like those of overlaid hands, embrace negative space, but details abound elsewhere: facial hair waxes and wanes, motifs emerge, and cameos crop up to reward the perceptive and persistent. VERDICT An intensely personal statement of intergenerational fellowship and an obvious pick for library shelves best explored at home.-Steven Thompson, Bound Brook Memorial P.L., NJ

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2020
Preschool-G Spare rhyming text inspires this instruction manual as dad and daughter gather tools big and small and ask: What shall we build, you and I? The answers include a door where there was none, some love, a gate to let others in, a road up to the moon, and a safe place to snuggle. The dad has a green watch cap and striped shirt, his daughter has a mop of straw hair; they are fleshed-out stick figures with expressive, energetic personalities, intent on exploring all the possibilities for joy and inclusion that the world offers. Fun pages in pencil, ink, and saturated watercolor remind us of similar joys in Jeffers' quirky cartoon style?no detail is too small to inspire investigation (astronaut-helmeted birds, a witch on a broomstick in space, offbeat aliens sipping tea, or a clockface with a sushi numeral). Children will love his playbook for building a future of love and imagination, and they will delight in the special relationship the father and daughter share.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)