L Is for Love
by Atinuke; illus. by Angela Brooksbank
Preschool, Primary    Candlewick    40 pp.
9/24    9781536235555    $17.99

There’s lots to love about this companion to B Is for Baby (rev. 5/19), which strings together lists of words starting with L for a day-in-the-life depiction of a multigenerational Nigerian family. The title-page illustration establishes their rural home, surrounded by a lemon grove at daybreak. Atinuke’s spare text then opens with the phrase, “L is for Love, and L is for Lemons,” leaving illustrator Brooksbank to define the cast of characters, including two grandparents, two parents, four children, and a bevy of animals. Illustrations also do the heavy lifting in constructing a visual narrative in which the elders help prepare the rest of the family to go to market in the city to sell baskets of lemons. They travel by foot and by bus, and when they arrive in Lagos, Brooksbank creates an urban setting that contrasts greatly with the homeplace. There’s a sense of wonder and delight in the children’s postures and expressions as they take in the city’s sights and sounds, inviting readers to pore over detailed, busy scenes and do the same. At book’s end, the parents and children return safely home to the grandparents’ embrace at nightfall, with a full-circle culmination where once again “L is for…Love!”

From the ">November/December 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.