The word "parent" is not just a noun. It's also a verb.
The plot is a straight-forward one. A pencil, symbolic in that pencils are generally used to describe everything presented to the eyes, the heart and the mind, tells us the story of a crayon called Red. His name is Red, because he’s wrapped in a red wrapper. But, to anyone who can see beyond the wrappings, he’s a blue crayon with a red label.
A young girl posits that she should not have to choose between her two Fathers. She shouldn’t have to do so.
“Baking with Daddy,” Cacciapuoti’s light-hearted look at baking a cake with Dad, is a frothy meringue of a book filled with cute doodles and vibrant illustrations.
It is doubtful that most people remember their very first haircut. However, in the moment, it is a daunting event, and not just for the recipient of the haircut. Anything that causes anxiety or stress in our children does the same for us as parents. A haircut is one of those events that usually happens early in our children’s lives.
Dada tries everything at his disposal to encourage Baba to go to sleep to no avail. Baba does not want his rattle, his blanky, or his stuffy, or a spin in the rocker with Dada. All he wants is a book. And, he makes that known loud and clear.
Books like Lyons’ Going Down Home With Daddy, are a mystery to me. A dad piles his family into a car and they drive down home to see great-grandma Granny and share in an amazing anniversary celebration where everybody shares something personal. Sounds amazing. And it is!
The other day at school, a classmate got angry at me and said ‘Clown!’ So begins our story and our entry into this black, white, grey and red world created by Andrés and Hernández, where a boy walks us through a few moments in his life and the impact his two dads have had on it.
Whenever I have spoken to parents about their children, and there have been quite a few of those conversations over the course of thirty years in the classroom, I am always especially touched by the look in their eyes. This is the story of that look.
So, this is not a book that I would normally gravitate towards if I saw it on the shelf of a bookstore, or was shopping online. For one, the artwork on the cover does not catch my eye; for another, the title Because I’m Your Dad reminds me too much of “because I said so,” which to me is a non-ender for any argument with anyone. This book was a gift to me and my child, And, I am very happy we received it, because otherwise, we would have missed out on a solid read.