“We’re moving.” Few phrases are more likely to strike fear into the hearts of children. Relocating means saying goodbye to friends and neighbors, fretting as treasured possessions are packed up, adjusting to new sights, sounds, and even smells. 

But children lucky enough to have a copy of Rebecca Stead’s Anything (Chronicle Books, April 29) will feel a little more courageous as they prepare for their own moves. Featuring Gracey Zhang’s delicate ink and gouache artwork, the story follows a nameless young girl who puts on a brave face as she and her father settle into a new apartment. Intuitive Daddy, however, senses his daughter’s uncertainties and does his best to ease her into things: He hosts a birthday party for their new place (complete with cake), promises to grant her three wishes, and soothes her when she awakens, terrified, in the middle of her first night in her new bedroom.

“I was really drawn to the idea of starting a book with a cake,” Stead tells Kirkus via Zoom from her home in New York City, “putting a small celebration on top of what is always a hard day. Even for adults, [moving] is a really big deal. For kids, it’s even [bigger].”

Anything is Stead’s first picture book after several acclaimed middle-grade novels, among them the Newbery Medal–winning When You Reach Me (2009), Liar & Spy (2012), and Goodbye Stranger (2015), all of which have received Kirkus stars. Critics have lauded her books for their candor and empathy; Stead is the rare adult who remembers exactly what it was like to be a tween. Though her latest work is aimed at a younger audience, she once more displays a keen understanding of a child’s emotional landscape.

Stead calls her childhood the most “intense stage of my life,” because “everything resonated deeply, and I had a lot of really unusual thoughts.” She adds, “I definitely was not comfortable with the idea that I was completely alone in here with all these thoughts. They weren’t dark thoughts, but they were deep thoughts, about how our specific selves got in here. Where did they come from? Where will they go? And a lot of thoughts about time.” 

Becoming an adult was a daunting prospect for her as a kid. “Growing up is a continuous process of leaving yourself behind a little bit,” she says. At the time, Stead was all too aware that the young version of herself would no longer exist as she grew up. These youthful perspectives played a role in her becoming an author: “Maybe writing about childhood is one way in which I get to hold on to the child I was, even while, of course, accepting that that person is really gone.” 

Write what you know has long been Stead’s ethos. “I always say I’m not that great at inventing things. I’m better at pulling threads from my own brain,” she explains. Anything is rooted in her memories of moving as a child. When she was 3, her parents separated but agreed that they would live within walking distance of one another while she was growing up. “I went back and forth between my parents’ apartments every other day, and my mom always stayed in the same place,” Stead recalls. “She’s still in that apartment on 95^th Street where she’s lived for 57 years.”

Her father frequently moved, though he always remained in the same neighborhood. “I had a lot of moving days with my dad, and he really did go out of his way to make things feel special,” she says.

 One thing Stead’s protagonist wishes for is a rainbow, and her father obliges, painting one over the wall of her bedroom. “In real life, I did once ask for a rainbow in my room,” Stead says. “I remember that [my dad] painted it all the way around the room. At the time, that seemed wild and over the top.”

While kid lit is rife with books aimed at helping children unpack big emotions, Anything takes a decidedly understated approach; the father in the story avoids hokey platitudes and pep talks. When the girl confides that what she wants most of all is to return to their old apartment, he responds with an upbeat “All aboard the train to home!” and a long piggyback ride that lulls her to sleep. Slowly, their new apartment begins to feel like home. “They’re meeting in this place of imagination throughout the day,” Stead says. “That is something that can happen in really strong parent-child relationships. You don’t need to say everything.”

Anything has been nearly two decades in the making. Stead wrote the book in 2006, after she’d sold her debut novel, First Light (2007), but before it was released. “I would occasionally take [the manuscript] out and play with it or send it to an editor. Nobody went for it. And I thought, OK, I’ll take my time.”

Once the book found a home at Chronicle Books, it continued to evolve. “Initially, this story also had a divorce angle, in that the girl is thinking about her mom’s apartment and missing her mom,” Stead says. “And a very wise editor said to me, ‘This is your first picture book, so I’m going to share some of my basic picture-book ideas with you. The first one is that a great picture book is about one thing, not two things. Right now this is a moving story, and it’s also a divorce story. I think you should pick one.’”

With its stripped-down prose, Anything is in many ways a bold departure for an author known for her richly layered fiction. When You Reach Me, a loving homage to Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time,plays with time travel, while Goodbye Stranger deftly blends storylines told from the perspectives of three characters, including one—narrating in second person—who remains unnamed for most of the book.

Stead emphasizes that picture books and longer fiction each present their own challenges. She compares writing a novel to building a house: “There are a lot of little nooks and crannies where you can make mistakes and hide things that are not quite working.” Although you might still have a “beautiful house,” she notes, readers who scrutinize every square inch will spot little things here and there that could have been improved. “That’s why novels never feel finished,” she says.

Picture books, on the other hand, are “high-wire acts,” she observes. “There’s a lot to think about in terms of balance and moving in a straight line. There’s nowhere to hide.”

And like many high-wire acts, creating picture books requires Stead to work with a partner—a most rewarding endeavor. “[Zhang] does a beautiful job of creating a character with a lot of expression for someone who’s so lightly drawn,” Stead says. In an especially noteworthy scene, the young protagonist, lying awake in bed, summons the courage to tell her father she wishes they hadn’t moved. “I remember my own kids really struggling sometimes to say what it was that was making them sad or upset or worried. I think that is really hard for kids.”

Thankfully, young people have an author willing to meet them where they are. “Childhood is very intense emotionally. I like writing stories where there’s a great respect for what young people are doing, which is crossing this long emotional territory.”

Mahnaz Dar is a young readers’ editor.