DID I TELL YOU I LOVE YOU TODAY?

A mother tells her child all the ways she demonstrates her love as they experience the events of daily living. Making sure her child is healthy, clean and well-fed, encouraging learning, listening and ensuring security are all opportunities for saying, “I love you.” Mother takes time to play and chat and teach, giving her child individual attention. She prays both morning and night that everything she does is understood as an expression of love. Evans’s bright, energetic illustrations, rendered in oil, are large-scale, stylized depictions of these activities. What sets this apart is that the protagonists are an African-American mother and child instead of the usual cutesy animals. In the manner of Guess How Much I Love You and other gentle evocations of parental and familial love, this is a tender read-aloud that might become an often-repeated bedtime ritual for the very young. (Picture book. 3-6)