"By heeding their wise grandmother's advice, a brother and sister discover the ability to lift themselves up and imagine a better world"-- - (Baker & Taylor)

Jacqueline Woodson and Rafael López's highly anticipated companion to their #1 New York Times bestseller The Day You Begin illuminates the power in each of us to face challenges with confidence.

On a dreary, stuck-inside kind of day, a brother and sister heed their grandmother’s advice: “Use those beautiful and brilliant minds of yours. Lift your arms, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and believe in a thing. Somebody somewhere at some point was just as bored you are now.” And before they know it, their imaginations lift them up and out of their boredom. Then, on a day full of quarrels, it’s time for a trip outside their minds again, and they are able to leave their anger behind. This precious skill, their grandmother tells them, harkens back to the days long before they were born, when their ancestors showed the world the strength and resilience of their beautiful and brilliant minds. Jacqueline Woodson’s lyrical text and Rafael Lopez’s dazzling art celebrate the extraordinary ability to lift ourselves up and imagine a better world. - (Penguin Putnam)

Jacqueline Woodson (jacquelinewoodson.com) received a 2020 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award, the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the 2018 Children's Literature Legacy Award, and was the 2018-2019 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. Her New York Times bestselling memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming, won the National Book Award, the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor, and the NAACP Image Award. Her books for young readers include Coretta Scott King Award and NAACP Image Award winner Before the Ever After, New York Times bestsellers The Day You Begin and Harbor Me, Newbery Honor winners Feathers, Show Way, and After Tupac and D Foster, and Each Kindness, which won the Jane Addams Children's Book Award.

Rafael López (rafaellopez-books.com) illustrated New York Times bestseller Just Ask! (by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor). He won Pura Belpré medals for Drum Dream Girl and Book Fiesta, and has also received three Pura Belpré honors, two Américas Book Awards, and the 2017 Tomás Rivera Children's Book Award and Society of Illustrators Original Art Silver Medal. His work has been featured in Communication Arts, American Illustration Annual, Graphic Design USA and Huffington Post. He's a founder of San Diego's Urban Art Trail movement, created seven US Postal Stamps, and created official posters for the '08 and '12 Obama-Biden campaigns. - (Penguin Putnam)

Booklist Reviews

*Starred Review* A sister and brother live with their younger sister and grandmother. In the spring, the weather is stormy, and the children grow bored. Summer finds them bickering over chores. In the autumn, the rooms of the apartment feel "big and lonely." Then, in winter, they move, leaving their familiar street and friends behind. From this basic premise comes a narrative rich with literary and visual symbolism, simultaneously simple and profound. What has happened to the parents? Why do they relocate? No details are provided, so the framework could be applied to many situations. Each season, their grandmother acknowledges the children's feelings and encourages them to find strength within. She tells the children to lift their arms, close their eyes, and figure out a way to fly. When they do, they are able to see positive elements, like flowers in the spring, companionship in summer, freedom in the fall, and new friends in winter. Fantasy elements in the illustrations include the girl's hair filling with butterflies, flowers, and then ships at sea that suggest the Middle Passage. Faces of ancestors appear in the leaves of plants. These images, as well as the children flying, are integrated into an otherwise recognizable world. With this book (simultaneously released in Spanish), Woodson and Lopez create a path that children may follow as they gain confidence and imagine a way forward no matter what challenges arise. Grades K-2. Copyright 2021 Booklist Reviews.

Horn Book Guide Reviews

Woodson and Lopez (The Day You Begin, rev. 9/18) follow a brother and sister over the course of a challenging year spent mainly indoors: That was the year we learned to fly. In Woodson's poetic text, the children's grandmother suggests that they use their imaginations to cure their boredom: Lift your arms, / close your eyes, / take a deep breath, / and believe in a thing. Later, when they move across town and are faced with the challenge of making new friends, their much-practiced skills help them succeed. The book reminds children that imagination is a powerful tool in any situation, and Lopez's colorful, eye-pleasing art enhances this message. Readers also are reminded that they have support from the past: My grandmother had learned to fly / from the people who came before / They were aunts and uncles and cousins / who were brought here on huge ships / their wrists and ankles cuffed in iron / but, my grandmother said / nobody can ever cuff / your beautiful and brilliant mind. In the accompanying art, the young girl stands with head bowed and her grandmother's hand on her shoulder. Images of ships on the sea are silhouetted against her afro, and away flies a brightly colored bird, now unshackled. In an author's note, Woodson discusses how Virginia Hamilton's The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales inspired her to write stories. Copyright 2023 Horn Book Guide Reviews.

Horn Book Magazine Reviews

Woodson and Lopez (The Day You Begin, rev. 9/18) follow a brother and sister over the course of a challenging year spent mainly indoors: "That was the year we learned to fly." In Woodson's poetic text, the children's grandmother suggests that they use their imaginations to cure their boredom: "Lift your arms, / close your eyes, / take a deep breath, / and believe in a thing." Later, when they move across town and are faced with the challenge of making new friends, their much-practiced skills help them succeed. The book reminds children that imagination is a powerful tool in any situation, and Lopez's colorful, eye-pleasing art enhances this message. Readers also are reminded that they have support from the past: "My grandmother had learned to fly / from the people who came before / They were aunts and uncles and cousins / who were brought here on huge ships / their wrists and ankles cuffed in iron / but, my grandmother said / nobody can ever cuff / your beautiful and brilliant mind." In the accompanying art, the young girl stands with head bowed and her grandmother's hand on her shoulder. Images of ships on the sea are silhouetted against her afro, and away flies a brightly colored bird, now unshackled. In an author's note, Woodson discusses how Virginia Hamilton's The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales inspired her to write stories. Nicholl Denice Montgomery January/February 2022 p.103 Copyright 2022 Horn Book Magazine Reviews.

Kirkus Reviews

An intergenerational family story of freedom. A girl with a big, curly Afro and her little brother, both light brown–skinned, live in a high-rise city apartment building. Because of stormy summer weather, they must stay inside. As a remedy for boredom and bickering, their grandmother advises them to "use those beautiful and brilliant minds of yours." And they do, throughout all four seasons of the year. Colorful butterflies and a vibrant little bird that often appear flying around the siblings represent their freedom, which is only ever as far away as an open book or the doorways of their imaginations. López illustrates the inside of the family's apartment with drab, muted colors that emphasize the children's confinement. In contrast, the outdoor scenes, illustrated primarily in pastels, exude luminosity and convey the youngsters' exuberance. Rather than being selfish with their ability to fly, the sister and brother share it with the neighborhood kids. The protagonist/narrator shares that her grandmother learned to fly from "the people who came before," who were "brought here on huge ships, / their wrists and ankles cuffed in iron." This recalls Virginia Hamilton's legend of The People Who Could Fly (1985), referenced by López in one illustration and discussed by Woodson in her author's note. Some readers will notice an intertextual reference to the pair's previous title, The Day You Begin (2018).The ebullient mixed-media artwork explodes with color and extends the richness of the text. (This book was reviewed digitally.) An uplifting story that will inspire kids, especially brown girls and boys, to dream. (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright Kirkus 2022 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly Reviews

Two Black siblings use their imaginations to escape their immediate surroundings throughout the seasons in this picture book by previous collaborators Woodson and López (The Day You Begin). During "the spring when the rain seemed like it/ would never stop," the children's grandmother—who wears butterfly wings as earrings—encourages the bored duo to "Lift your arms,/ close your eyes,/ take a deep breath,/ and believe in a thing." They do, "flying over the city we'd known/ our whole lives," and from then on, nothing can keep them down—neither anger in summer, nor loneliness in autumn, nor unfriendly kids in a new neighborhood during winter. Learning to soar "from the people who came before," the children are told both that their feelings have been experienced by others, and that "nobody can ever cuff/ your brilliant and beautiful mind," a lesson they pass on in turn. Energetic layered multimedia illustrations accompany the poetically repeating lines, vividly depicting winged escapes over images of a slave ship and contemporary real-world high-rises. An author's note acknowledges the work of Virginia Hamilton in this book's origins. Ages 5–8. Author's agent: Dorian Karchmar, William Morris Endeavor. Illustrator's agent: Stefanie Sanchez Von Borstel and Adriana Dominguez, Full Circle Literary. (Jan.)