One Love (Bob Marley #1)

As she did in Three Little Birds (Tuff Gong, 2006), Cedella Marley adapts a song by her late father, reggae musician Bob Marley. She takes liberties with the lyrics: other than the song's chorus ("One love, one heart, let's get together and feel all right!"), the prose bears no resemblance to the original song. Marley replaces religious references with nature-based reflections on love: "One love, what the flower gives the bee./ One love, what Mother Earth gives the tree." Readers rely more on Brantley-Newton's (Let Freedom Sing) cheery, mixed-media illustrations to follow the book's plot, in which a girl galvanizes her multiethnic community to pick up litter and plant flowers to open "One Love Park," their cooperative efforts driving home the "let's get together" thrust of the refrain. Filled with patterned materials and bold colors, Brantley-Newton's illustrations are as sunny as the characters' dispositions, and the scenes include several visual nods to Bob Marley. Conflict-free, it's simply a feel-good story of a community coming together--though unfortunately, not one readers can really sing along with. Ages 4-8. (Oct.)

PreS-K--The message of this picture-book adaptation of the famous reggae musician's well-known song is laudable, and the words are simple and rhythmic: "One love, what my family gives to me. One love, what the flower gives the bee. One love, what Mother Earth gives the tree. One love, one heart, let's get together and feel all right!" This tribute by Marley's daughter contains a few lyrics on each page against a backdrop of Brantley-Newton's exuberant illustrations that tell the story of urban neighbors creating a park from what was once a garbage-strewn lot. The illustrations do the bulk of the work in this title, which would work well with Pat Brisson's Wanda's Roses (Boyds Mills, 2000).--Lisa Egly Lehmuller, St. Patrick's Catholic School, Charlotte, NC