Special Delivery: A Book’s Journey Around the World

While young Jay, portrayed with brown skin, counts the sleeps until his next birthday, workers help transport a volume—sharing this picture book’s cover—across the globe. The item’s trip begins at a factory, where it is “packed into a box by Cherry, moved along a belt into a crate, and lifted... into the container on Han’s truck,” Faber writes. Others, such as a gantry crane operator named Chi Wan, a container ship captain called Flip, and a warehouse scanner named Hannah, do their part, until Jay’s white-presenting grandmother buys the volume at Pip’s bookstore in anticipation of the big day. By relying on the specific names of workers, who are portrayed with varying skin tones, assonant lines lend intimacy to what’s typically a faceless process. Geometric scenes by Fahlén take place beneath blue skies, brightly spotlighting the process that results in books on readers’ shelves. A twist at the end fittingly drives home the message that people are at the heart of any “special delivery.” Statistics conclude. Ages 2–5. (Apr.)