Readers looking for picture books featuring people who look like them: rejoice! The 70-odd pencil and gouache vignettes that illustrate the spare, prayerlike text for In Every Life by two-time Caldecott honoree Marla Frazee (The Farmer and the Clown) depict people of different skin colors, abilities, ages and so on. And if the art alone wasn't inviting enough, Frazee has paired it with marvelous text.
In Every Life begins with the words "In every birth, blessed is the wonder"; below it are 10 delicate little drawings of adults holding newborn babies (or, in one case, cupping a pregnant belly). Two pages later, "In every smile, blessed is the light" introduces 10 images of one or more people indulging a happy moment: a child double-fists ice cream cones, two older women enjoy each other's company, a kid in a wheelchair catches a ball. The five ensuing spreads show people who are, respectively, engaged in activities, experiencing sadness, appreciating something interesting, shedding tears and feeling love. Following each spread, a single wordless illustration encapsulates the sentiment that precedes it--e.g., in the image after "In every moment, blessed is the mystery," an adult and a child at the beach gawp at surfacing dolphins.
In an author's note, Frazee says that she got the idea for In Every Life at a church service: "I heard a call-and-response version of a Jewish baby-naming blessing and immediately felt its potential as a picture book." Fellowship is precisely the feeling that she captures here, in uplifting word and luminous image. --Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author