How Far Do You Love Me?

PreS-Gr 2--Inspired by a game Delacre played with her daughters, this celebration of the love parents have for their children poses the question, "How far do you love me?" with answers that span the globe. Soft pastel paintings of places such as the Grand Canyon in Arizona and Cenote Dzitnup in Yucatan, Mexico, along with expressive sentences describing these locales, are used to compare a parent's love to the vastness of the natural world. "I love you to the top of the peaks lit by the morning sun....To the depths of the cave where a spring seeps sweet water...." Various cultures and all seven continents are represented, and each spread is labeled to identify its setting; an outline map and author's note are included in the back matter. At the end, the child tries to outdo his mother by loving her "to the Moon," but as he falls asleep, she has the last word: "I love you to the space beyond the space we know." This topic is similarly explored in many classic picture books such as Sam McBratney's Guess How Much I Love You (Candlewick, 1995) and Margaret Wise Brown's Runaway Bunny (HarperCollins, 1942), but the multicultural worldview is unique. A good choice for one-on-one sharing between a parent and child.--Kristine M. Casper, Huntington Public Library, NY