By Amy Krouse Rosenthal
Page after page of gentle wishes for a child, from more ups than downs to more can than knot. People give it for new babies, graduations, and any moment you want to say I hope the best for you.
Every page holds a wish, and each one is a little pair: more ups than downs, more give than take, more treasures than pockets, more can than knot. The pictures do a lot of the work — a child flies a kite, blows a dandelion, floats in an inner tube — so a four-year-old can see what a wish like 'more give than take' actually looks like. It builds toward the last one, that the child will always know how loved they are. Start to finish, it reads in about four minutes.
You hand this one over when you want to give a child every good hope you have, all in a single small book. The words stay plain enough for a four-year-old, and the wishes ring true enough that the grown-up reading them feels each line, which is why godparents, aunts, and teachers keep buying it for birthdays and new starts. A child can grow up hearing it and only later understand it was really a letter from someone who loved them. Tom Lichtenheld's bright, funny pictures keep the whole thing from ever tipping into sappy.