THE BIRTHDAY OF THE WORLD

On a child’s fourth birthday, their favorite person in the world, their grandfather, tells them what happened when the world was born.

As the grandfather tells the story, a page turn takes readers from a mainly dark page with a picture of a birthday cake to a stunning kaleidoscope of color. “A great ray of light” brings darkness to an end, and sparks fall into the world and into everything in it. A multicolored spread showing a diverse collection of living beings, each with their own spark, conveys the grandfather’s story in dazzling colors and engaging details. Unfortunately, the text does not have the same charm. The phrasing doesn’t flow; rather, beings are listed: boys, girls, dogs, rabbits, plants, trees, etc. The grandfather then explains that these sparks are still within us, but “We can’t see them with our eyes / We can only see them with our hearts”—a line that feels too similar to the famous quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince (1943). Though the painterly images are beautiful, making stunning use of color and light, the text is preachy as it details what people can do to make their sparks and the sparks of others shine more brightly. The child and their grandfather are light-skinned and cued Jewish; other characters are racially diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

This visually stirring but heavy-handed attempt to teach children empathy and awareness falls flat.