That’s What I’d Do

Inspired by the birth of her son, singer-songwriter Jewel adapts an original song into a cozy picture-book celebrating the bond between parent and child. Through-out, the mother imagines herself as a rabbit, the rain, the owner of the sky, and more (“If I had the sun,/ I’d put yellow in a brush/ and paint you a portrait/ that you could feel and touch”). Rhyming verses and a catchy, reassuring refrain (“That’s what I’d do, do, do, do, do./ ’Cause I love you, you, you, you, you”) skip across pages filled by Bates’s (Hillary Rodham Clinton: Dreams Taking Flight) airy mixed-media compositions that show mother and child interacting tenderly in a variety of whimsical scenarios. The line “If I were a carpenter,/ tell you what I’d do./ I’d build a boat/ to sail away with you” portrays the mother bathing her child in a bathtub turned sailboat, having shoved off from a beach littered with tools and seashells. A CD recording of the song is included. Ages 1–5. Agent: Robert Barnett, Williams & Connolly. (Sept.)