When I unpack new books that get sent into the office, certain books unpack themselves, gently demanding that I stop what I am doing and read them. So it was with Float. I stopped my colleague and we read the book together. Then we walked around the corner to show our librarian. This striking book was very quietly demanding attention. Now at 5:37 am on January 11th it is demanding attention again after I woke up dreaming of it. Later this morning I will find out if it demanded any attention from 15 Caldecott judges who were meeting this weekend. I am in Boston for the announcements. Who knows?

Float is the simple wordless story of a little boy who takes his paper boat outside in the rain to see if it will float. Very soon the boat embarks of a journey on its own as the boy chases along. A dramatic climax is followed by a gentle scene where his Dad blow dries his hair. A hopeful ending is beautifully drenched in colour, the grey/yellow palette of the book suddenly reversed in a visual twist. You can find more pictures on the publisher's website.

I don't care much for children's books that are artistic but fundamentally miss what it is to be a child. However, Float is both a visual feast and a wonderful tribute to the things of childhood: creativity, adventure, splashing in puddles, facing problems, being sad and picking yourself up again, moving on, being joyous. A modern myth about children is that they are constantly stuck to a screen, or that busy parents schedule too many activities during the day to for their children to enjoy childhood. While these stereotypes may bear some truth, I believe that children are happiest when they independently think of something to do and then do it. At school and at home, kids do best when they play creatively. Even when things don't go as planned, they can always move on to the next thing. It's a concept that adults too often forget.

Float woke me up this morning and bathed me in its metaphors. Now I'm walking off to the convention center to see if any Caldecott judges agreed with me. There are other really good books that could easily be chosen, but I'm floating this paper boat out there before we find out for sure.

The story follows a little girl in a red coat following her distracted father through an otherwise grey cityscape, stopping to pick colorful wildflowers she spots along the way. The pages you see above show that the book utilizes the square pages in different ways to further the story. Whole page illustrations show the bright red coat of the girl against the background, which starts in black and white and slowly grows more colorful as the story progresses. Other pages have a comic book feel and have special things to say. Notice in the nine frame page above that it seems that the flower sees the little girl at the same time as she sees the flower (look at the perspective in frame #7) suggesting that wildflowers are calling out to be noticed and picked. Further on in the book, the dual frame with the park and the dead bird shows that color comes into the background world as the little girl decides to use her wildflowers as a colorful tribute. As the story goes on, the little girl shares her wildflowers again and again, and each time she does the surrounding world gets a little more vibrant.

When I think of children from war-torn countries reading this book, several things come to mind and some of them bring a dull ache into my heart. The story of a small girl who can walk safely through the street, letting go of Daddy's hand as he talks on his mobile phone while resting his shopping by the side of the road while she climbs up embankments to gather wildflowers I feel would be painfully out of reach to refugees in Syria, and along the escape route as families struggle to survive in any way possible. On the other hand, the idea that little tiny pockets of color exist in places to which young children are naturally attuned might be as true in Syria as it is in Canada. The little girl's tribute to the fallen bird is absolutely heartbreaking in the context of children who have likely lost family members along the way. It makes me wonder what feelings this page will bring up for Syrian refugee parents and children who read it, and how they will deal with these emotions. It is easy for politicians and others to speak of the "problem" of refugees, but in all honesty, how absolutely insignificant these inconveniences seem compared to the devastating loss of life and the constant threat of violence from which these families have so desperately fled?

After the little girl in the book has finished making her small world more beautiful with her tiny floral gifts, there is a double spread where she looks up in the sky at the freely flying birds and places the last flower in her own hair. It might be cold outside, because she's pulling up her hood. This optimistic double spread is also a call to thoughtful self-care, and the independence the little girl shows as she now walks alone outside puts her independently in charge of her own surroundings. She's safe enough, having arrived at her destination. The lack of highly detailed illustration on this page harkens to the unharmed, unfettered simplicity of childhood. It's possible that this spirit is still alive inside the refugee recipients of this book. Let's hope so.

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Another book I previously wrote about, My Two Blankets, uses color to show the journey of refugees and the difficulties of arriving in a new land where everything (including language) is strange. In Sidewalk Flowers, in the context of being read with refugee children who do not yet speak English, the gradual transition from black and white to color in this book is surely indicative of arriving in a foreign world, and finding your own place bit by bit as you gather beauty along the way. The language-free format of the book makes it possible for this book to be read in whatever way it is most needed.

For Syrian refugees arriving in Canada, this gift is an eloquent and deeply meaningful welcome to a new, more secure world. For the rest of us who buy this book, it is the perfect Christmas (or New Year, or Hanukkah, or Pancha Ganapati or other holiday) celebration this December as we open our hearts to the love of humanity and innocent children.

Reading the book with the music, I felt almost like I was meditating rather than reading a story. I was transported back to the time when my children were small, and I watched them walk to school with their tiny umbrellas waving in the air. I was watching from the 3rd floor above the street, so this book strongly reminded me of this picture, and of the world I lived in - Japan - where children walk together in groups to school. Reading this book gave me a window into Korean culture and I imagined that children walking to school might be a common sight, even on a rainy day. It's a lovely thing that in a world where we worry about every little thing, there are still places in the world where innocence can happen on a daily basis. The simple act of children walking to school together, waving their colorful little umbrellas in the air and perhaps singing a little song - this is what Yellow Umbrella wants to show us.

I did find myself counting umbrellas and noticing colors as I read. As such, you might see this as a good book for introducing colors and numbers to little children. While I think it is that, I don't think it's a classic colour or number book. For one thing, the numbers are not linear. The music starts out "counting" with one line of music for one umbrella and two lines of music for two, but at some stage the music stops counting and starts invoking shape and other elements in the story. I wondered what this book might sound like if the theme of the music were more differentiated, and used more instruments than the piano solo. However I can understand the decision of the author to keep the same theme (based around the song printed in the back of the book) and use a solo instrument - one that is likely to be common in many kindergartens (another side note: every kindergarten teacher I've met in Japan plays piano, because there is at least one piano in every kindergarten).

For students who have never had experience of other cultures, this book is nonetheless a beautifully crated book that interacts well with the accompanying music. Whether or not it would be used as a "read aloud" in kindergartens and schools would be up to the creativity of the teacher and the available time to listen to the music. Two options are given for the music - the "read aloud" version which takes snippets from the music broken up with silence to indicate page turns (THANK YOU for not including a chintzy bell sound), and the full piece of music for each page which would take considerably longer. The song is also included, sung in Korean and translated in English with the sheet music printed. As a mother-child read aloud, I think this book is simply beautiful and would be a good choice for bedtime in order to quiet the mood. While there is very little action in this book, it is a moving depiction of childhood independence in an increasingly controlled world.