Quiet Time with My Seeya

In Australian author-illustrator Dabarera’s endearing picture book, a narrating child and their grandfather, both portrayed with brown skin, express fondness in ways that rise above verbal communication’s constraints. “Time with my seeya is quiet time,” explains the young narrator, curled up at the feet of their white-bearded grandfather. “Mum says that’s because Seeya and I speak different languages. But that doesn’t matter to us, because my seeya and I like all the same things.” These shared interests—playing dress-up, puddle-stomping, bug-finding, gardening, and beating video game baddies—are depicted in sweetly affectionate, lavish colored pencil scenes whose visible grain summons a velvety dimensionality. Throughout, onomatopoeic phrases get to the root of the duo’s emotional reactions and their tenderly rendered bond, which offers an image of camaraderie and relative quiet as love’s true language. An author’s note, and photograph of the creator with family in Sri Lanka, concludes. Ages 3–6. (Mar.)