The First Day of May
by Henrique Coser Moreira; illus. by the author
Preschool, Primary    Levine Querido    40 pp.
3/24    9781646143825    $15.99

First published in Portugal, this wordless book celebrates—with abundant style—the blossoming of spring. Most spreads convey the action in a series of four or six small, square panels. In the opening ones, an aerial perspective reveals, after clouds part, a neighborhood of homes. Inside one of those homes is a child who sees the sun is shining and bolts outside. She takes flight and visits a forest teeming with life. Moreira’s tableaux—with simple shapes and a palette of primarily reds, blues, greens, and browns—are filled with clever surprises. The change in season is indicated via a calendar (a “30” page falls away to reveal a “1”), along with a newscaster on television whose speech bubble contains a sun. The protagonist’s boundless energy propels the story. For example, in one early spread, the child’s body, exaggeratedly elongated, winds around the living room furniture, seeking an exit to the outdoors; she’s so eager to get outside that her body flies headlong toward the door—readers see her from a side view—only to be halted by a parent who reminds her to put on her shoes. It is playful and exceptionally funny moments like this that make the story sing; many preschoolers will relate. Throughout, changes in scale accentuate the child’s wondrous forest discoveries, which includes a grasshopper crooning into a microphone. A breath of fresh air, in more ways than one.

From the January/February 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.