May You Love and Be Loved: Wishes for Your Life

by Cleo Wade (Author)

Reading Level: 2nd − 3rd Grade

May You Love and Be Loved: Wishes For Your Life is the tender and joyous next picture book from New York Times-bestselling author and poet, Cleo Wade.

May you know fear but not be driven by it

May you know joy and follow it everywhere

May you know light and shine it every chance you get

From the bestselling author of What the Road Said, Cleo Wade's next heartfelt and lyrical picture book is a love letter to the infinite potential of the future, expressing the many hopes and dreams we hold for our children and ourselves. Gorgeously illustrated by the author and filled to the brim with her signature big-hearted emotions, this book is an important reminder that, above all, what we wish for everyone's precious life is that they can love and be loved.

Select format:
Hardcover
$18.99

Kirkus

Just the ticket for graduating seniors and other nest leavers: lyrical and intense, if occasionally a little vague.


Publishers Weekly

Wade shares gladdening wishes in this benedictive poem accompanied by pen, ink, and watercolor sketches. Titular remarks bookend the speaker's hopes for the reader: "May you love and be loved// May you wonder, wander, and delight." Embracing learning, experience, and more ("And may you be weird. Very Very weird"), openhearted verse addresses emotional highs and lows, offering strength and encouragement. Natural motifs abound in the text ("May you live in awe/ in awe of the moon.... May the sun and her/ tangerine skies/ always feel like a miracle"), while visuals of weather, buzzing bees, nest-building birds, and the like support more conceptual sentiments. The image of a blooming cactus, for example, accompanies, "When the days feel/ long and hard/ May your spirit be/ sweet and strong." Layering on examples and ideas, word and image build to a benevolent vision of a well-lived life. An author's note concludes. Ages 3-6. (May)

Copyright 2024 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.
Cleo Wade
Cleo Wade is a writer and poet whose work explores love, freedom, healing, and the power of community. She is the New York Times-bestselling author of What the Road Said, Heart Talk: Poetic Wisdom for a Better Life, and Where to Begin: A Small Book About Your Power to Create Big Change in Our Crazy World. Cleo is from New Orleans, Louisiana, and currently lives in California with her partner Simon and their two super cute daughters, Memphis Love and Bayou Beloved.
Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9781250873958
Lexile Measure
-
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Feiwel & Friends
Publication date
May 07, 2024
Series
-
BISAC categories
JUV039050 - Juvenile Fiction | Social Themes | Emotions & Feelings
JUV039220 - Juvenile Fiction | Social Themes | Values & Virtues
JUV013000 - Juvenile Fiction | Family | General
JUV070000 - Juvenile Fiction | Poetry (see also Stories in Verse)
Library of Congress categories
Picture books
Conduct of life
Love
Self-realization

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