SPRINGTIME Showers? You Need The Umbrella!

 

CLARION BOOKS/Harper Collins, 2023

Despite April ending, showers will certainly continue throughout the spring. If relentless gray skies are getting you down (or if anything else is having that impact in your life) please make the effort to find, read, and share a new picture book written by Beth Ferry and illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld, THE UMBRELLA.

It is an admittedly open homage to the late Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Her resilience and widely-appreciated kindness and generosity to readers, writers, to everyone, were hallmarks of her daily life, published work, and tragic but graceful early passing from this world.

In a strikingly kid-friendly and adult-heartwarming story, minimal rhymed text and black/white illustrations provide a sense of the wearying impact of persistent gloom, rain, and gray moods. Worry and frustration abound, but a young girl seizes a badly tattered yellow umbrella, seeing hope in a thrown-away object that others ignored.

On the run home, scraps of the umbrella scatter into the park fields, leaving her nothing that will really help. Even so, she wakes the next day with a smile, donning her raincoat and clipping her exuberant pup for yet another walk in the rain. I won't spoil the surprise ending, or the simple glory of a magical realization of hope that perfectly suits a spirit-of-Amy Krouse Rosenthal tribute. I hope you'll seek this one out and keep it handy. It could be the ideal gift for any age, for anyone going through a sustained hard time, or even just too many rainy days in a row.