A SMILE

Smiling children transform all they meet.

Using brightly colored forms, cheerful collage illustrations provide a lively, child-centric, visual context for this uncredited English adaptation of the poem “Un sourire,” attributed to Follereau, a French humanitarian who worked with people who had Hansen’s disease. Opening with smiling parents waking their children in the morning, the simple text reminds readers “a smile costs nothing” and can be given to others. “A smile only takes a moment, / But its memory lasts forever,” the poem goes on. Walking to school, the children enter a neighborhood bakery where their smiles provoke laughter, proving smiles generate happiness and keep businesses running. A sad-looking, well-dressed, older businessman enters the bakery and leaves smiling. He shares coffee with a tired young man outside, showing no one’s too rich or poor to need or receive a smile, which is a “sign of friendship,” providing a “moment of rest for the weary.” Carrying a huge birthday cake, the smiling children proceed to school, where their preoccupied teacher breaks into a huge grin when her pupils (all smiling) surprise her with a birthday party. The poem appropriately closes with a reminder to be generous with smiles while, outside the bakery, the now-smiling young man plays his violin to delight the children. Characters are depicted with varying skin tones and racial presentations; the two protagonist children present White.

A joyful, infectious celebration of the transformative power of a smile.