Miracle

In a brisk, gentle poem, a brown-skinned girl named Piper Rose stays outside all day in the snow, waiting for a miracle: “Miracle miracle, where are you?/ I’ve searched and I’ve searched the whole day through.” Throughout, Amini-Holmes incorporates the word miracle into the landscape around Piper Rose: she perches on it pensively in the opening spread, and it later appears written in cloudlike letters in the sky, in the branches of a tree, and on the face of the sun. Piper doesn’t take much notice of any of these signs, and in the final pages, readers will understand that she’s holding out for a specific miracle: the appearance of the moon in the night sky. Though miracle is quite literally spelled out on each spread, it’s unclear whether Haddock aims to encourage readers to appreciate small, everyday miracles; the overall effect is that of a contemplative nursery rhyme. Piper Rose’s red coat and windblown, vibrantly striped scarf are an immediate draw in each of Amini-Holmes’s illustrations. The snowy scenes are all quite similar, but they exude a quiet, wintry peacefulness. Ages 4–8. (BookLife)