JonArno Lawson

from Terri:

Sidewalk Flowers is a children’s book without words. The end pages are a treat…with abundant illustrations of flowers and birds across the pages. This book offers an opportunity for you and your child to become storytellers as you turn the pages of this quaint book. Sidewalk Flowers follows a little girl taking a walk with her father. Dad is preoccupied with his cell phone during their walk. The little girl is full of curiosity and notices many things on her walk including the little patches of beauty that grow in the cracks and crevices of the sidewalks. The illustrations look like they come out of the 1950s. The illustrator uses color sparingly but uses the color for emphasis as the story progresses. Sidewalk Flowers is a wonderful book for children but also for anyone who wants to tell the story as they see it.… (more)

Reviewers disagree about who the people in the climax are. Mom and younger siblings? Aunt and cousins? Friends? The woman seems very emotional to finally see the little girl and the man (presumably father), more so than if they'd just run a few errands.

Oh well, that's the problem (challenge?) of wordless books - the reader gets to make their own interpretation.

In this case the rest of the story seems quite clear, and quite lovely. I do recommend the book to everyone who has any sort of appreciation for beauty, mystery, compassion, joy.… (more)