I Believe in You (Marianne Richmond) - Hardcover

Yes, this is yet another picture-book confirmation of a child’s self-worth, but it’s not without its own rough-around-the-edges charm. A parent’s voice supplies the rhyming, first-person voice: “You came into our family / with a big, BIG job to do, / the one of growing up into / the one and only you!” From birth to monsters to playing baseball, whether roller-coaster days are easy or tough, there is always reassurance from the unseen narrator. Keywords and key phrases are printed in different colors to drive home the self-esteem messages, adding to the colorful hodgepodge design. The breezy, bright watercolors, meanwhile, are spontaneous looking and childlike, with a minimum of brushstrokes used to suggest the backdrops behind the smiley-face characters. Though message driven and purposeful, this declaration of unconditional love might just provide a caregiver with the right words to express his or her confidence in a child who is not feeling up to the latest task. Grades K-2. --Julie Cummins