How Far Do You Love Me?

March 15, 2013
A simple question enables the author/illustrator to travel around the world in her poetic and visual answers. Starting on a Vieques, Puerto Rico, beach, a mother answers the question posed by her son and tells him her love ranges to places as far-flung as the glaciers of Antarctica, the Ladakh Himalayas and the Great Barrier Reef. Delacre uses her soft pastels to depict such images as the sinuous natural forms of a desert in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, where a woman in traditional dress cradles an infant, and the text reads: "I love you to the crests of the desert / where the wind sweeps sand from the dunes." As the book comes full circle, the original mother tucks her son in and asks, "And how far do you love me?" He answers, "I love you to the moon!" On the last page, in a beautiful, deep night sky, the question appears in different languages in original scripts (with no transliterations or pronunciations, a missed opportunity). Although the place names on each double-page spread can be difficult to read, that information is also provided on a map at the end. Small and reminiscent of the emotional feel of The Runaway Bunny, this is an intimate bedtime book with a global theme. (Picture book. 3-6)

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June 1, 2013

PreS-Gr 2-Inspired by a game Delacre played with her daughters, this celebration of the love parents have for their children poses the question, "How far do you love me?" with answers that span the globe. Soft pastel paintings of places such as the Grand Canyon in Arizona and Cenote Dzitnup in Yucatan, Mexico, along with expressive sentences describing these locales, are used to compare a parent's love to the vastness of the natural world. "I love you to the top of the peaks lit by the morning sun....To the depths of the cave where a spring seeps sweet water...." Various cultures and all seven continents are represented, and each spread is labeled to identify its setting; an outline map and author's note are included in the back matter. At the end, the child tries to outdo his mother by loving her "to the Moon," but as he falls asleep, she has the last word: "I love you to the space beyond the space we know." This topic is similarly explored in many classic picture books such as Sam McBratney's Guess How Much I Love You (Candlewick, 1995) and Margaret Wise Brown's Runaway Bunny (HarperCollins, 1942), but the multicultural worldview is unique. A good choice for one-on-one sharing between a parent and child.-Kristine M. Casper, Huntington Public Library, NY

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