Sometimes You Fly: A Celebration of Babies, Graduates, and Everyone in Between

With a cast that ranges across the span of childhood, this book seems destined to be given at milestone moments. Each page turn contrasts “before” vignettes with wordless, triumphant “afters”—the result of learning, resilience, or maturity. The dinosaur fan who was too short to ride the “Dino-tastic” roller-coaster has, in the next scene, grown enough for the exhilarating ride, his hands flung high in the air. The girl who first looks at a book and sees only a mass of undecipherable markings becomes the kind of reader who can’t put down a book even after lights out. Reinhardt’s watercolor-and-ink portraits have a marvelous specificity that invites readers to connect more deeply with the diverse characters as they struggle, grow, and “sometimes... fly.” Ages 4–7.[em] Author’s agent: Elena Giovinazzo, Pippin Properties; illustrator’s agent, Marietta B. Zacker, Gallt & Zacker Literary Agency. (Apr.) [/em]