THE BIG UMBRELLA: Kindness Has No Limits

Whether you are a regular viewer of THE ELLEN SHOW or not, you've surely seen and heard her daily closing:  BE KIND TO ONE ANOTHER.

That mantra is a simple one, but profound. 

And true.

That message is undoubtedly a major reason why humans of every age love Ellen. Especially kids.

THE BIG UMBRELLA is authored and illustrated by Amy June Bates and co-authored by Juniper Bates, a mother-daughter team. Kids who get their hands and eyes and hearts on this new picture book will adore it, as will the adults who read and share the book with kids. 

A Paula Wiseman Book, 2019

The cover (including the back cover) suggests the story, but as pages turn and the truth unfolds, the story expands, our hearts expand, and we realize this analogy is even more compelling than we could have imagined. 

That massive, smiling red umbrella on the cover is introduced on the first double spread. There, it's a normal size umbrella, propped at the door, with a snoozing, subtle, smiling face. The page turn reveals the back of a kid, decked out in rain gear, hand on the umbrella. The umbrella's closed eyes have opened and its smile expands knowingly. The text for those two spreads is simple and gentle:        
                                 "By the front door...         there is an umbrella."
On each successive page the umbrella becomes the main character, the one you see on the cover. It likes to help, to spread wide, to give shelter.  It gathers people in, no matter the size, shape or color of the people it encounters. No one is excluded, furry or four-footed, even web-footed.
My favorite spread is when this expansive umbrella seems stretched beyond imagining, surrounded by others on a busy city street, with this text:

         "Some people worry that there won't be enough room under the big umbrella."

And why not? Isn't the world telling us, day after day, that life is a zero-sum game? That anything shared with others reduces what WE have? Aren't modern day messages (to adults) meant to entrench selfishness? To create calculations about just how much anyone can afford to offer in the way of sharing, sheltering, support. We're constantly reminded that we should limit kindness, generosity, caring for fear that the supply could and would run out.

Umbrella knows better. Sunshine knows better. There is always room, and the need will not last forever. And in the process of gathering under THE BIG UMBRELLA, those vast and very diverse sheltered people have become familiar with each other, even becoming friends.

There are plenty of delightful and laughter-inducing picture books that have to do with an everyday object expanding beyond reality. A perfect example is Jan Brett's THE MITTEN.  For lap-reading, class reading, or teen analysis, there are plenty of ways these can be compared, and I encourage that process. Ultimately, though, the question should be: What is this book really saying to you? 
That could (and should) be different for each reader, but there is a universal truth that can be recognized. 
I hope you'll explore that question with kids, but also share THE BIG UMBRELLA with adults. 
Especially those who wear the label fiscal conservatives and social liberals. Consider carefully where the line between those two categories can be drawn, and where the red umbrella would stop providing shelter.
As I so often say, and write, and think:  Little books have big ideas.