(2) PS Goodale blends realism and a touch of fancy to pitch some big ideas to the toddler and preschool crowd. "When a baby is born, the moon is there. The moon remembers." The book begins with the moon smiling down on a peaceful, brown-skinned newborn. Page-turns reveal how the moon watches that baby and other babies as they grow; the moon sees parents, bunnies, crickets, and even dinosaurs as babies and remembers them all. Goodale balances the cuteness of all these babies with illustrations in dark earth tones, framing all this life in nature, outdoors, at night. A blend of monoprint, gouache, watercolor, and collage gives the images rich depth and texture. Delicate lines and shading highlight individual people, animals, leaves, flowers, and blades of grass. The visual suggestion is that life is abundant, but also that even the smallest parts of it are worthy of attention, and "the moon remembers" becomes a soothing refrain. The occasional line speaks more to adults than children ("So, if you look up, wondering who you are"), but grownups need soothing too. The human family depicted here is multiracial, another standout element in this book that will be welcome at bedtime and baby showers.

Reviewer: Adrienne L. Pettinelli | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2023

(2) K-3 Goodale (Windows, rev. 11/17; Under the Lilacs, rev. 7/20) presents a gentle rumination on space and time, memory, and the enduring love of family. "Today, I am at my gramma's house, high on the hill, amongst the blueberry bushes," begins the adolescent narrator, her gaze open-heartedly trained on readers from a sun-dappled spread. "And also..." Now, with a page-turn, and in a muted purply palette, she's shown as a younger child: "...I am remembering camping with Mama," with a small adventure in the woods. The story continues, shifting to the grandmother: "Today, my gramma is at the kitchen, watching me from the window. And also... / ...she is remembering being a little girl in her mother's garden." The girl's mother's recollections (and those of the grandmother's cat) follow, before returning to the narrator. Now, as an adult, she's writing this very book while recalling--and re-illustrating, with subtle differences--her time at her grandmother's. The book concludes: "We are all here...and also there. / Always." It's a heady observation made somewhat more concrete and accessible by ­Goodale's finely attuned sense of childlike wonder and the illustrations' (made from monoprint, gouache, and blueberry ink) thoughtful compositions. A red bird on every spread helps situate viewers in place and time, past and present.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2022

(2) PS "Sometimes I want to run away," says a girl staring out a window. She'd like some company and is frustrated not to have it. Her mother is busy teaching music lessons, and her sister would rather be alone. The girl slides a note under her mother's door and, with her cat Mango by her side, runs away--to the top of a nearby hill, that is. Under a lilac tree, she constructs for herself a small fort out of cardboard and sticks, one that resembles the house she's just left, and wonders if anyone will notice that she's gone. Though disappointed by her family, she misses them and ensures that there's room for them all inside her fort. The family members eventually head outside to join her under the lilacs--although possibly only in her imagination. A lush, lemony yellow and soft, warmly colored shades of green dominate Goodale's deliciously textured monoprint illustrations in the form of the brilliant light outdoors and the grasses where the girl builds her home-away-from-home. Vividly popping off the pages is the lavender of the flowering lilacs on the tree guarding the girl's construction. Goodale examines with sensitivity the need for children to occasionally break away and find their own space for solitude while simultaneously exploring the sense of security they get from a loving, if sometimes distracted, family.

Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2020