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PRESCHOOL
Moreira, Henrique Coser

The First Day of May

40 pp. | Levine Querido | March, 2024 | Trade ISBN 9781646143825 $15.99
(1) PS First published in Portugal, this wordless book celebrates -- with abundant style -- the blossoming of spring. Most spreads convey the action in a series of four or six small, square panels. In the opening ones, an aerial perspective reveals, after clouds part, a neighborhood of homes. Inside one of those homes is a child who sees the sun is shining and bolts outside. She takes flight and visits a forest teeming with life. Moreira's tableaux -- with simple shapes and a palette of primarily reds, blues, greens, and browns -- are filled with clever surprises. The change in season is indicated via a calendar (a "30" page falls away to reveal a "1"), along with a newscaster on television whose speech bubble contains a sun. The protagonist's boundless energy propels the story. For example, in one early spread, the child's body, exaggeratedly elongated, winds around the living room furniture, seeking an exit to the outdoors; she's so eager to get outside that her body flies headlong toward the door -- readers see her from a side view -- only to be halted by a parent who reminds her to put on her shoes. It is playful and exceptionally funny moments like this that make the story sing; many preschoolers will relate. Throughout, changes in scale accentuate the child's wondrous forest discoveries, which includes a grasshopper crooning into a microphone. A breath of fresh air, in more ways than one.
Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2024

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