Love Is Here with You: A Lullaby of Blessings

As dusk falls at the start of this culturally rich bedtime picture book, a family of Indian heritage surrounds a wide-eyed infant: “Crickets sing at twilight’s gloam/ Night birds warble, creatures roam// My sweet baby, here at home/ Your cradle waits for you.” Subsequent pages show the family amid clouds and swirls, while the narrator calls upon major deities of the Hindu pantheon to bless the child (“May mighty Durga, fierce and true,/ guard your slumbers, all night through”). Further invocations draw on American symbols (“Land of the brave, home of the free”) and the earth itself (“sun and wind and fire”) in petitioning strength and protection for the youth. Lushly rendered, dreamlike illustrations from Ali (Babajoon’s Treasure), in blues, golds, greens, and pinks, seem to evoke the iconography of South Indian Hindu temples, while spot illustrations throughout highlight lore and traditions. On one spread, “joyful Krishna, prince of tunes,” ensconced in a leaflike motif, gazes across the book’s gutter at the delighted child. Lilting rhymes from Rajan Gopal (The Desert Queen) drive this tender familial lullaby with devotional cadences. Extratextual definitions of Tamil endearments appear throughout. Ages 3–5. (Dec.)