May the Stars Drip Down

April 14, 2014
Using a palette of inky midnight blue, white, and pale gold, McClure's torn paper compositions bring a sense of movement, mystery, and dimension to musician Chatelain's evocative lullaby. As a mother and young child cuddle close, white specks of stars, rings of light, and wavelike celestial patterns stand boldly against dark swaths of land and sky, creating a contrast that is reminiscent of woodprint. The melodic rhymes conjure wild and sweeping imagery, amid well-wishing for the boy's future journeys: "The wind blows grasses green and blue/ May the path gently lead you./ To a coastline town where porch lights blink,/ Till the last house slowly falls asleep,/ While waves roll in forevermore./ May you walk the sandy shore." In one spread, the boy peers with almost savage independence from behind tall meadow grasses. Yet at the finale, the mother (advanced in age) continues to comfort and hold her sleeping offspring: "Then the morning light comes gently in,/ And you wake to sunshine and the wind,/ Whose whispers will ring true./ May I always have you./ May I always have you." Ages 3â7.

Starred review from February 15, 2014
In this achingly loving interpretation of the indie band Cub Country's lullaby, a mother cuddles her sleepy son, picturing his dream wanderings in the natural world and wishing him well on his nighttime journeys. McClure's cut- and torn-black-paper illustrations carve out nocturnal landscapes in shadowy blues and blacks, with white bringing lightness in sharp relief. The boy shifts shape, turning into a fox, an owl, a seabird and even a fluttering leaf. Young readers will flip back to the book's endpapers, pointing to the cherished toys and objects scattered in the boy's bedroom that drift into his dreams. Marvelous double-page spreads feel like nature hunts themselves in their beautiful complexity, initiated on the first page with a full moon that's dotted with light by small, circular cutouts. And with a page turn, the boy's sleeping breath turns to stardust, and readers float off with him across sparkling sand dunes and rippling grasses. Many of the song's lyrics will be lost in the ether. "And there will come a new dune. / May the sand wash over you." Children won't know what to make of such lines, but McClure's masterful illustrations make both the mother's intense connection to her son and his dazzling dreams lucid. (The song is available for download on the publisher's website.) A richly imagined dreamscape in a feat of paper artistry. (Picture book. 4-6)

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May 1, 2014

PreS-K-There is something unsettling, rather than soothing, about the lyrics of this lullaby: "May the sand wash over you." "Where the seaweed and the starfish hide, /You'll float away on waves of blue." It's hard to know what these images are intended to convey, beyond an oblique, vague, poetic sensibility. McClure's cut-paper illustrations display assured technique but do little to illuminate the meaning of the words. Perhaps it all hangs together better when one hears the music, which a note on the verso invites readers to download from the Abrams website.-Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Library, NY

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