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Summary
Summary
Kate Banks's lyrical poetry pairs with Gabi Swiatkowska's playful dreamlike images to create this must-have book for all children who are about to be new siblings.
While Mama's busy knitting a wardrobe for her unborn baby, big sister is preparing in her own way: imagining, asking, wondering what this baby will like. As the seasons pass, this baby grows, too--and soon big sister will have the answers to all of her questions.
Author Notes
Kate Banks is the author of many books for children, among them Max's Words , And If the Moon Could Talk , winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, and The Night Worker , winner of the Charlotte Zolotow Award. She grew up in Maine, where she and her two sisters and brother spent a lot of time outdoors, and where Banks developed an early love of reading. "I especially liked picture books," she says, "and the way in which words and illustrations could create a whole new world in which sometimes real and other times magical and unexpected things could happen." Banks attended Wellesley College and received her masters in history at Columbia University. She lived in Rome for eight years but now lives in the South of France with her husband and two sons, Peter Anton and Maximilian.
Gabi Swiatkowska has illustrated many notable books for children, including My Name is Yoon , for which she received the Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator Award. She lives in France.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-From spring through winter, a girl wonders about the new baby that her mother is carrying. Time passes slowly and then seems to speed up as the due date comes closer. The child has many questions: "Will this baby like to play?...like the cat?" Will it be a boy or a girl, and will the siblings like each other? There are no definitive answers but all of the inquiries should prompt discussion. The charming, lyrical text reads like a lullaby while the mother knits and sews baby clothes, and includes a slight change in each refrain: "Knit, Mama, knit/to and fro./The birds are piping./Soon we'll know." The girl imagines the miracle of life in a sweet and endearing way. For example, one spread features a baby swathed in a green, leaflike cocoon with its face peeking out, and another shows the infant within a sphere representing the womb. The whimsical paintings are all saturated with color. This title provides a visual opportunity for light explanations and conversations about what occurs during those precious nine months without getting too specific or scientific.-Anne Beier, Clifton Public Library, NJ (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
A girl's questions about the baby growing inside her mother fall naturally into poetry, whose hand-lettered lines curl and twine through Swiatkowska's haunting paintings. "This baby,/ twisting, dipping/ kicking Mama's ribs./ Will this baby like the cat?" asks the baby's older sister-to-be, a grave girl in pigtails and red tights. "Knit, Mama, knit./ What will it be?/ A girl or a boy?/ Soon we'll see." In a conversation like this, the mother usually supplies reassurance; here, she sits knitting silently, radiating steadiness and affection, and the daughter, with characteristic older sisterish maturity, reassures her mother: "Will I like this baby?/ Will this baby like me?/ Knit, Mama, knit./ And soon we'll see." Swiatkowska (A Not Scary Story About Big Scary Things) pivots easily between the real and the magical; the sister imagines the deliciously plump, saggy-diapered baby sailing in a boat across her mother's knitting, then walking a tightrope made of the mother's yarn across a starry sky. Banks (The Eraserheads) acknowledges the gravity of children's thoughts and the depth of their love; it's a quiet, idiosyncratic celebration of new life. Ages 4-8. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
A girl watches her pregnant mother knit a layette and wonders what the future will hold ("Will this baby like the stars?"). The art is as metaphorical as the text: in one typically lovely spread, the girl imagines that her new sibling balances on a strand of yarn that connects their mother's knitting needles with the moon. (c) Copyright 2012. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
In this lushly illustrated poem, a baby grows in the womb, while through the seasons the soon-to-be big sister wonders who this baby will become.Banks begins each verse with a description of the baby's growth in utero. As flutters turn to kicks, the older child's questions represent seasonal changes: Will the baby like rain boots, spring leaves, the sea? But most importantly, "Will this baby like me?" The latter parts are thoughtful, lyrical and evocative, while the former half at times feels clunky. And while the lettering matches the aesthetic of the illustrations, it at times crowds Swiatkowska's stunning artwork. Worked in a rich, limited primary palette, her pieces are a wonderful mashup of Maira Kalman's playful compositions and linework and Peter Paul Rubens' sumptuous, romantic depictions of the human form. In her figures readers will feel the warmth of the baby's flesh, the softness of the skin. And although some of her brush strokes look raw or unfinished, every color gradation or mark is descriptive of either form or value. Her spreads are deceivingly sophisticated and absolutely dreamy. Unfortunately, while it seems that the images want to play across a wider format, the work is designed in an awkwardly vertical fashion, stifling the art.While there are elements of brilliance, poor design decisions keep this title from reaching its full potential. (Picture book. 4-7)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In this dreamy, illustrated lullaby, Banks and Swiatkowska tap into a young child's anxieties about a yet-to-be-born sibling. The swirling, hand-painted text has the repetitive appeal of a nursery rhyme as a young girl wonders about the new arrival through the seasons. Will this baby like to sing. Will this baby like the sea. Each spread puts a slight twist on a rhyming refrain. Knit, mama, knit / row after row. / The rain is tapping. / Soon we'll know. Occasionally, the lines feel aimed at an older audience. This baby . . . nestled in a womb, kept and coveted like a tightly held secret. But even if children don't catch the meaning in each word, they'll enjoy the sounds and rhythms as well as the gentle flights of fancy in Swiatkowska's paintings, which feature both the girl and her imagined views of the new baby as it grows. Most on-target are the girl's final, direct questions. Will I like this baby? Will this baby like me. Soon-to-be older siblings will find their own feelings voiced in this fanciful offering.--Engberg, Gillia. Copyright 2010 Booklist
