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PICTURE BOOKS
Salmieri, Daniel

Before, Now

48 pp. | Penguin/Rocky Pond | June, 2023 | Trade ISBN 9780593461976 $19.99 | Ebook ISBN 9780593461983 $10.99
(1) K-3 Salmieri delivers a moving intergenerational story using opposites as its central conceit. Opening pages show a view of Earth from space, reading: "In the dark sky floats a bright planet." The page-turn zooms in on a seashore "where wet waves crash on a dry stretch of beach." Next, there's a city, whose characters are rendered in colored pencil with a sketchy, gestural style. These include "a small person in a big chair," the protagonist of the story. She is a toddler who appears Asian, with dark hair and peachy-tan skin. Salmieri wisely gives the character signature green clothing, a color symbolic of growth, so that readers can recognize her as she changes throughout the book, from child to teen to professional scientist and woman with a family of her own, all the while incorporating opposites that reflect her interests and experiences ("a loud concert in a quiet field...thick books made up on thin sheets of paper"). At the end, the green-clad woman, her dark hair now white, is shown with a baby in her lap, looking at "an old photo in a new frame / [that] Shows a picture of a small person in a big chair." It's an immensely satisfying, full-circle conclusion.
Reviewer: Megan Dowd Lambert | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2023

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