SWEET CHILD O' MINE

A rock band’s 1988 hit makes a tender love note from parent to child.

This print version pairs the original song’s lyrics—stripped of lead singer Axl Rose’s wails and most of the repetitive closing breakdown—to neatly composed scenes of a child’s day with loving adults. The outgoing child, first met singing expressively into a flashlight, and an androgynous guitar player step out of their country home to meet a smiling woman, then end up on an outdoor fairground stage before a diverse family audience of a dozen or so. Aside from references to rain reflected in a quick thunderstorm, the plotline is entirely in the pictures. From the opening “She’s got a smile that it seems to me / reminds me of childhood memories” to the climactic “Where do we go now? // Where do we go? // Sweet child,” the sparse but heartfelt lines, as is typical in picture books based on pop songs, don’t make much literal sense. Still, aided by an occasional subtle change in type size, they create a gentle rhythm that suits the overall intimate tone. If Zivoin methodically tucks roses into nearly every illustration, there seem to be no guns. The characters and family situations are portrayed with enough ambiguity to allow multiple interpretations: The guitar-playing caregiver has light skin, and the woman has brown skin; the child’s skin is a smidge darker than the guitar player’s. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at 52% of actual size.)

Stronger in feeling than storyline, but the lovin’s only lightly tinged with sentimentality.