Here Is a Book

PreS-Gr 2–Caldecott honoree Cooper has crafted a lovely tribute to the process that brings books from creative and talented minds into the hands of children, inspiring further creation. Sweeping illustrations and small spot art, done in watercolor and pencil, capture the experience of an illustrator creating a book, delivering it to their editor, and the book going through the manufacturing process and out into the world to be shelved and eventually taken home by a young person. The use of faceless characters nudges readers to find themselves under the influence of a beautiful story and may encourage them to create one themselves. For a look into the global production process, Polly Faber’s Special Delivery: A Book’s Journey Around the World could be a worthy complement to this title. Curiously, while the details of production are not the focus of this text, it is worth noting that the production phase features a printing factory with a large American flag in the art while the copyright page of Cooper’s book is itself is marked “printed and bound in China.”