Side by Side: A Celebration of Dads

In an album filled with carnival colors, Caldecott Medalist Raschka paints portraits of fathers playing with their children. A girl with long dark braids rides on her dad’s back, beaming with happiness: “Horse/ and rider.” A page turn, and she’s wearing a crown while her father cuts a caper and waves his hat: “Queen/ and jester.” A third spread shows the two running off, kites in hand, “side by side.” Five more father-and-child pairs in a variety of shapes, ethnicities, and sizes play and take pleasure in each other’s company. Each pair receives several dedicated portraits that end with the chorus “side by side.” The art offers pleasing tensions: small and large, strong and fragile, leading and following, sleeping and waking. The figures are friendly and resolutely unglamorous, wearing an array of hats and clunky, oversize shoes, and their placement in each spread has a rhythmic grace. Stiff, creamy pages and the long, thin trim size give the book a distinctive look. Raschka understands the crucial role that fathers and father figures play in children’s lives, and he conveys it with childlike exuberance. Ages 3–5. [em](Mar.) [/em]