Sidewalk Flowers, by Jon Arno Lawson, illustrated by Sydney Smith. This extremely moving wordless wonder packs an emotional wallop. A little girl walks through an urban landscape with her father and finds beauty in the sidewalk cracks. As he chats on his phone, she collects flowers. Using pen & ink and graphic novel style panels, inventive illustrator Smith strikingly begins their trek in black & white, with only the girl's red coat (done in watercolor) the only color. As the child discovers the sidewalk flowers, more varied colors enter the frames, but in a stylized touch, Smith picks and chooses what will be in color and what will remain in black & white. For example, one spread shows a bunch of passengers waiting for a bus and only a woman's flower-covered dress, the sidewalk flowers, the girl's aforementioned hoodie, and the side of the bus have splashes of color. Lawson's story takes a poignant turn when we see the girl start leaving some of her newly found flowers on a dead bird, a man sleeping on a park bench, with a friendly pooch. The child's sense of empathy and giving fills the page, and the reader's heart, leading a beautiful ending where the girl shares her gift of flowers with loved ones. A gorgeous, beautifully designed masterpiece.
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