Sister Wish

In this slowly unfolding meditation on the complicated dimensions of sisterhood, two white-skinned sisters with pink cheeks work through their thoughts on the topic. Little sisters, the younger child posits, have it rough: “I have to wear your hand-me-downs with ice-cream stains and holes.” But so do older sisters, says the other, mournfully trying on a pair of cowboy boots: “I grow out of all my favorite things and have to give them to you.” Potter (Try It! How Frieda Caplan Changed the Way We Eat) works out the privileges and drawbacks of age in quiet, intimate steps that sometimes turn surreal (“A fish probably wishes it had legs and could gallop like a horse”). At last, the older sister admits that she envies her younger sister’s ability to make people laugh, then offers a loving insight: “And anyway, if there were two of me and none of you, there would be no little sister to give piggy-back rides to.” “And no one could do this trick,” says the little sister, hanging upside down from a tree branch. Watercolor and ink paintings by Potter feature classic props of domestic play—tea sets and high-heeled dress-up shoes—in an intimately observed, grass-is-greener distillation of two siblings’ experience. Ages 4–8. Agent: Jennifer Laughran, Andrea Brown Literary. (June)