When you feel different, the world around you can tell. It shows in the fear on your face, the slump in your shoulders, the distance between you and others in your class. And the children around you will remind you how different you are with their side-eye glances and low whispers — and the way they position their bodies away from you, not-so-subtly announcing you are not invited to join the group. Have you been the outsider before? Can you visualize what it looks like? In The Day You Begin, Rafael López’s illustrations marry with Jacqueline Woodson’s text to create the perfect visual experience of growing from an outsider to finding the courage to connect with others “a little like you [but] so fabulously not quite like you at all.”

We can see the growth take shape throughout the book. When Angelina, the book’s central character, inquisitively peers from a doorway into a great unknown on the book’s dust jacket, readers instinctively know she will experience growth. López’s use of symbolism can be seen on the cover both vertically and horizontally, from the brown-colored ruler that complements Angelina's skin tone (vertical) to the vibrant, water-colored flower vine that flows from a book Angelina carries (horizontal). It is this vine that leads the reader to the front endpapers with a muted garden containing a single bright flower. López expands this garden on the back endpapers with his addition of two more pink flowers, each symbolic of the number of isolated characters introduced by Woodson.

As the story begins, Angelina opens the door a little wider, and it is here you notice what López does best — fluidly create two separate worlds on each of his spreads throughout the book. The beauty lies in his effective use of a scene that depicts the togetherness of a group, yet the loneliness of being an outsider when people are hesitant to get to know you. Though you may not catch it the day you begin this book (pun intended), after reading it successive times you will appreciate the brown ruler’s return in later pages. Each time López uses it, you are reminded that growth will come — for the girl eating a lunch unfamiliar to her classmates or for the alienated boy on the playground during recess, longing for acceptance. It will come even for the immigrant child who cracks a slight smile when his teacher introduces him in a tone so soft it sounds like a song. Did you ever consider how similar a ruler and music staff appear?

In The Day You Begin, there is hope in the ruler. Hope in the bright purples, pinks, and greens that build the scenery of each illustration. Hope in just about every spread as the garden continues to grow. Most importantly, hope in the faces of these young people. Woodson writes how “the world feels like a place that you’re standing all the way outside of,” and López evokes that emotion in the reader with a lonesome boy standing on a deserted lawn on the recto in juxtaposition with a playful group of classmates on a playground on the verso. But it is when Angelina develops the confidence to share the stories of her summer reading, which take her to many worlds beyond her bedroom, that López allows her to sprout from the page. Not only does she leap into a new world with her sister, but she flourishes within. And on the next spread, so do her classmates as they listen curiously to all her adventures. And while this is where Woodson’s nonlinear text climaxes and you know the story will soon end, it’s where López widens the children’s eyes and turns up the corners of their mouths, while Angelina’s pose boasts a sense of belonging. Flip to the final page — with not a single word on it — to see the joyful image of a group of once shy, skeptical, and outcast individuals enjoy a friendly moment playing in the fall leaves. Then you close the book, and if it failed to hit you before, you realize López could have told the story with his illustrations alone.

Caldecott worthy? I think so. What do you think?