Greenlight

Stationed at the bottom of a traffic signal by the sea, sweet-faced Greenlight sees all the brightly colored, square-shaped vehicles speeding beneath it, but it feels deeply unappreciated and often left alone. “They stop for Redlight. They slow for Yellowlight,” it complains. “But me? It’s like they can’t get away fast enough.” Fed up, Greenlight stops shining, closing its googly eyes to shut out the world. But this self-imposed time-out actually proves salutary. In detailed cut-paper collage art that employs primary and secondary hues to render a green-space landscape populated with variously diverse human figures, Carzoo (Lou) depicts the moment as a meditative state that allows Greenlight to move through a series of affirmations: “You’ll know when you’re ready./ Take your time./ The world is waiting to see you shine.” Realizing that it doesn’t need others’ approval (“All this time I thought/ if they didn’t like me, I couldn’t like me!”), and taking the occasion to center itself, Greenlight opens its eyes and signals “GO!!!” Right away, the piled-up traffic awaiting its sign clarifies just how communally important Greenlight is. With a wink of humor and a lot of heart, it’s a story that sheds a moving light, so to speak, on powerful mantras of self-acceptance, awareness, and appreciation. Ages 4–8. Agent: Adria Goetz, Martin Literary. (July)