Falling Star

The protagonist of this self-acceptance tale by Liu (Hidden Gem) is a chunky, yellow-green star with big, earnest-looking eyes and a seemingly clear sense of purpose: “I twinkle, tiptoe, and dance,/ looking for wishes to grant.” A self-described “overachiever,” the being nevertheless struggles to handle the dog-eat-dog world of astronomical life, where stars compete to “be number one:/ The star that lost souls wish upon.” Sweating the pressure, it plummets from the sky in what looks like a teardrop-shaped aura. But when two sailors discover the fallen star on Earth and set it in a lighthouse’s lantern room, it realizes, “I’m exactly where I need to be,” guiding ships to safety. Single-plane, full-spread watercolor and digital images, rendered with tissue-paper textures, rounded shapes, and a fanciful sense of scale, depict the star entering Earth’s atmosphere through a literal crack in the sky. While the rhyming text can be workmanlike (“Now I’m upstaged by the lights in Paris,” says the narrator, “Don’t look at me; I’m so embarrassed”), the visuals demonstrate the joy of finding where one truly belongs. Human characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 4–6. Agent: Thao Le, Sandra Dijkstra Literary. (June)