Lily Loves

Drews’s drawings look like they’ve been chalked on the sidewalk; her coral and sky blue color scheme echoes Lüftner’s portrait of Lily, a mercurial character who’s on fire one minute and reflective the next. “Lily can scream so loudly that the birds lose their feathers,” Lüftner says; Drews shows the pigtailed Lily with her hands thrown out theatrically, sound waves spiraling outward from her mouth. “But she can also whisper so softly that she can’t hear herself,” he adds. Drews shows Lily in blue, one end of a tin can phone to her mouth, the other to her ear, looking puzzled. Far from being bothered by her contradictory nature, Lily revels in it, and Lüftner finishes by addressing readers: “You are simply the world’s best when you are who you are,” he says. “Just look in the mirror and love yourself.” It’s a clunky ending that breaks the “show, don’t tell” rule; Lily doesn’t need help demonstrating what “being who you are” is like—she manages it beautifully all by herself. As a vivid portrait of a spirited girl, though, this is a treat. Ages 3–7. (Sept.)