LOVE

Love by Stacy McAnulty and Joanne Lew-VriethoffLove
writ­ten by Sta­cy McAnulty
illus­trat­ed by Joanne Lew-Vriethoff
Run­ning Press Kids, Decem­ber 2018

Here is a book to give to those peo­ple who imme­di­ate­ly jump to your mind when you think of love.

Love isn’t about objects or com­mer­cial hol­i­days or competition.

It’s about time spent togeth­er, mak­ing mem­o­ries, being thought­ful, notic­ing the details (I saw that “bag of cheeze-it” on the refrig­er­a­tor gro­cery list.), and under­stand­ing that love exists all around us. We only have to take notice.

Love is at once a heart­en­ing book for tough days, a joy­ful book for cel­e­bra­tion days, and a book to be shared often.

The illus­tra­tor fills these pages with friend­ly and ener­getic expres­sions of love, nei­ther cute nor cloy­ing, but endearing.

Love
from Love by Sta­cy McAn­ul­ty, illus­tra­tion copy­right Joanne Lew-Vri­ethoff, Run­ning Press Kids, 2018

We can see our­selves through­out these pages. (I appre­ci­ate the sign lan­guage for “LOVE” on the ded­i­ca­tion page.)

The diverse cast of char­ac­ters include a deployed mom, surfer dudes, beloved pets, and a father shar­ing the north­ern lights.

Love calls for bou­quets of flow­ers, depicts a young boy bring­ing wild­flow­ers to an old­er man who is sick in bed, “and must have the finest choco­late,” which brings a smile with its shared choco­late chip.

from Love by Sta­cy McAn­ul­ty, illus­tra­tion copy­right Joanne Lew-Vri­ethoff, Run­ning Press Kids, 2018

This is a fine choice for a lov­ing gift, a social-emo­tion­al dis­cus­sion starter, and a com­fort­ing pick-me-up when needed.

It is impos­si­ble to fin­ish this book with­out tears glint­ing in your eyes and a renewed sense that love is our best gift from — and to — the world.

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