Daddy, Will You Miss Me

Kindergarten-Grade 3Four weeks seems like forever to a youngster whose dad is on a business trip in Africa. Rituals such as the father whispering his sons name to the wind and sending kisses across the ocean and the boy marking off the days on the kitchen calendar help pass the time. When the child and his mother feed the winter birds, he imagines his father watching giant African birds and when he follows animal tracks in the snow, he imagines the man following lions across the sand. When the day finally arrives for the narrator, his baby sister, and his mother to go to the airport, the boy is the first to find his father and leaps into his arms. This gentle picture book will be reassuring for children coping with a brief separation from a parent and is ideal for Fathers Day displays. The nameless childs first-person narrative is gentle and depicts a contemplative lad. The illustrations, done in warm, homey shades, are executed in crayon pencil and depict the boys world as one filled with love and parental support and concern. For another title dealing with a traveling parent, see Caroline Feller Bauers My Mom Travels a Lot (Puffin, 1985).Shawn Brommer, Southern Tier Library System, Painted Post, NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

McCormick's debut children's book introduces a boy saddened by the fact that his father is leaving on a four-week business trip to Africa. The man reassures the boy that he will each day "whisper your name to the wind" and each night "send you kisses, blown flying and diving out over the black sky like swooping night birds to settle with slender feet into your dreams." In turn, the boy vows he will collect a special item every day while his father is away, to give to him on his return. Narrated by the boy, the story nonetheless adopts an adult perspective (e.g., the boy describes his father: "Moonlight falls over him like water dripping in through my window"), and the most childlike element, the boy's collection of various objects, gets short shrift. Eachus's (Goodbye Pappa) softly focused, lifelike portraits capture the sincerity and wistfulness of both adult and child, while smaller-scale depictions of the African plains and wildlife show the boy's notions of what his absent father might be doing and seeing. Ages 2-6. (May)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.