Mirror

Opening this expertly designed picture book reveals two parallel wordless tales: one to be read left to right, the other right to left. The stories follow a day in the family life of two boys, who live in urban Australia and the Valley of Roses in southern Morocco, respectively, as Baker explains in an afterword, written in English and Arabic. In layered, three-dimensional collages, Baker shows the differences between the families (traveling to an open-air market by donkey versus a trip to a hardware megastore in a Citroën), but it is the underlying commonalities—helping parents, doing chores, caring for pets, sharing meals—that will resonate most. Ages 5–7. (Nov.)