Before, Now
by Daniel Salmieri; illus. by the author
Primary    Rocky Pond/Penguin    48 pp.
6/23    9780593461976    $19.99
e-book ed.  9780593461983    $10.99

Salmieri delivers a moving intergenerational story using opposites as its central conceit. Opening pages show a view of Earth from space, reading: “In the dark sky floats a bright planet.” The page-turn zooms in on a seashore “where wet waves crash on a dry stretch of beach.” Next, there’s a city, whose characters are rendered in colored pencil with a sketchy, gestural style. These include “a small person in a big chair,” the protagonist of the story. She is a toddler who appears Asian, with dark hair and peachy-tan skin. Salmieri wisely gives the character signature green clothing, a color symbolic of growth, so that readers can recognize her as she changes throughout the book, from child to teen to professional scientist and woman with a family of her own, all the while incorporating opposites that reflect her interests and experiences (“a loud concert in a quiet field…thick books made up on thin sheets of paper”). At the end, the green-clad woman, her dark hair now white, is shown with a baby in her lap, looking at “an old photo in a new frame / [that] Shows a picture of a small person in a big chair.” It’s an immensely satisfying, full-circle conclusion.

From the July/August 2023 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.