My Brother Is an Avocado

PreS-Gr 2–Using tangible equivalents that children will understand, the brown-skinned narrator of this charming picture book offers a stage-by-stage, step-by-step report of her new sibling’s growth. “Dad says my brother is a teeny tiny poppy seed.” So the girl knows she has to wait. Then, “My brother is a grape,” so she can take him to a game where she is a spectator (and the grape is smiling) but she doesn’t want him to be as squishy. There is a comparison to an onion, Brussels sprout, pumpkin, and watermelon, but the best flip, beyond the worrisome avocado brother, is that it’s a baby sister who comes into the narrator’s life. This is a joyful look at the horribly long wait for a new baby, here taking place in the home with a white father, brown mother, and loving sister. The seasons pass in bright illustrations that render complications large and small, none of them insurmountable and all of them leading up to that big surprise.