Your tiny wishes in the air.’ ” It’s a day of wonder, with a touch of danger and a solution to Brook’s quest. Sensory details allow the protagonist to hear, see, smell, taste, and hold the wild: “ ‘Quick! Make a wish!’ said Mimi, / holding out a DANDELION, / fairy dust sitting on a stem. Key words are printed in color in a larger display type and capital letters.

The expedition is described in vivid language, organized as free verse in single sentences or short paragraphs. Both Mimi and Brook are depicted as white.

(An author’s note explains the author’s motivation: She had read of the removal of 100 words about outdoor phenomena from the Oxford Junior Dictionary.) The duo sets out to search for and experience the 19 words on Mimi’s list, from “acorn” and “buttercup” to “violet” and “willow.” Kloepper’s soft illustrations feature green and brown earth tones that frame the white, matte pages bursts of red, purple, and other spot colors enliven the scenes. When a girl visits her grandmother, a writer and “grand friend,” she is seeking something special to share at show and tell on the first day of school.īefore Brook can explain, Mimi expresses concern that certain words describing the natural world will disappear if someone doesn’t care for and use them. Now it was more like a sparkly blanket, covering us both.” While Hosford’s text deftly evokes the child’s voice, Swiatkowska’s expressive, lush illustrations steal the show, providing infinite opportunities for readers to examine each and every spread.Ī stellar artistic vision of the infinite power of intergenerational love. Worse yet-no one had noticed her fancy new footwear that day! But after school, Grandma tells her “Uma, I meant to tell you this morning-those are the most beautiful shoes I have ever seen!” and in a joyous spread, Uma glories, “…my love for her was as big as infinity.” Then Uma and her grandmother go outside to look at the sky, and “nuggled up to Grandma, the sky didn’t seem so huge and cold anymore. She then realizes that her pondering has made her forget about the new red shoes she’d been so excited about right before her stargazing musings began. When little Uma gazes at the vast night sky and wonders how many stars are there, she asks, “How could I even think about something as big as infinity?” When friends, her grandmother, the school cook and the music teacher offer creative ways of describing infinity, Uma ends up feeling rather overwhelmed.

Uma’s struggle with the meaning of infinity offers readers a playful, gorgeous introduction to the mathematical concept.

Infinity and me by kate hosford