Looking for Yesterday

“Yesterday was the best day,” a boy wearing pajamas reflects. “I wish I could go back and do it all again.” Fantasy elements from the child’s banner day tumble across his comforter: a merry-go-round, a T. rex, a gargantuan ice cream treat, and more. Jay (Bee and Me) paints the boy with thin spectacles, a round head, and rubbery limbs, and she illuminates his thoughts using delicate strokes against backdrops of sky blue and mossy green. To return to yesterday, he reasons, he would have to travel at “superluminal speed,” faster than the speed of light, or perhaps—flattened first to infinitesimally small size—through a wormhole in space. He asks his snowy-bearded grandfather for help. Their relationship is warmly drawn as Granddad recalls a string of his own glorious days (“I have laughed until dawn with friends old and new”). They look through his sepia-tinted photo album, and he offers grandfatherly advice: memories are grand, “but every day brings the chance of a new adventure.” Whether or not the moral persuades, the story’s energy lies in its science fiction speculation, including the exciting possibility of shrinking to “one billion trillion trillionths of a centimeter.” Ages 2–5. [em](Aug.) [/em]