In reassuring couplets and gentle ink-and-wash drawings, the team behind Love Is a Handful of Honey
explains just how deep grandparents' love for their grandchildren can be. "It's heaven to see you!" exclaims Grandma Bear as she greets Little Bear. When the fellow asks her what heaven is, she replies, "It's not all that easy to tell you,/ Because heaven is so many things." Yet she goes on to describe pleasures very much of this world: "It's chasing you around the garden/ And hearing you shriek with delight./ It's lying down while you sit on my tummy/ And tickle with all of your might." The text frames single-page images and full-bleed spreads, sometimes with creatively curvy type lines. Cabban shows Little Bear and his grandparents spending time in gentle ursine exploits on flower-sprinkled meadows, as well as the grandparents' cozy cave with its big red armchair for eating cupcakes in and an enormous blue towel for drying off after a bubble bath. In the soft pastel glow of a summer sunset, Little Bear reunites with his parents. Without a theologically conventional definition of heaven, this volume will likely have universal appeal to grandchildren and grandparents alike. Ages 3-7. (Mar.)
