Sisters First

October 15, 2019
A paean to sisterhood by the former first daughters. Although the co-authors are twins, their rhyming, first-person text is in the voice of a girl praying for a baby sister: "Please make her kind, with an enormous heart, / clever too, and very smart." Her wishes are prompted by her observations of other sisters, whom the accompanying cartoon art depicts as diverse pairs of girls, including two brown-skinned children with wavy brown hair and a white-appearing girl holding the hand of a small child who appears black, with dark skin and afro-puffs. The narrator is blonde with light skin, and her sister is born with a similar complexion but reddish-brown hair. The big sister is chagrined to realize that having a baby sister isn't all she'd expected, but frustration abates when she reflects on her earlier prayer and thinks, "If kindness was what I was asking of you, / I needed to be kind and patient, too." As the baby grows, the sisters achieve the loving, close bond the narrator prayed for. While the core sentiment might well move readers, the bland art stops short of expanding or enriching the text, and the writing both falters in cadence and descends into cliché, as in lines reading "And with time...we found a rhythm, your hand locked in mine. / We sang duets and danced in rain and sunshine." Not a first pick. (Picture book. 3-6)

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November 4, 2019
Hager and Bush follow up their 2017 memoir, Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life, with this heartfelt picture book tribute to sisterhood—both literal and figurative. “As we’ve grown older, our definition of ‘sisters’ has expanded to friends and colleagues—women who lift us up and help us believe that we are enough,” they write in an introductory note. As the story opens, a lonely girl eagerly awaits the birth of a sibling: “My wishing paid off;/ it was written in the stars;/ A new baby sister would/ soon be ours.” Reality sets in, though, once the infant arrives: “You cried and you ate, but not much more./ (My new baby sister was a bit of a snore).” As the baby matures, the two become inseparable, yet, in keeping with the authors’ message about the expansive nature of sisterhood, they also spend time cavorting with a diverse cluster of other girls. Kaulitzki (Badger’s Perfect Garden) crafts breezy, luminous mixed-media illustrations that capture the sisters’ mutual affection and playful flights of imagination. Though the verse’s rhythm and rhyme are sometimes strained, the story’s genuine sentiment shines through brightly. Ages 5–8.