This joyous book celebrates all of the things that dads do for their kids in daily life, from cooking to playing to instilling confidence. Dads protect, comfort, and help their kids overcome fears and be proud of their accomplishments, we learn. They help their kids wear “preposterous hair” and “fantabulous clothes,” but also to “embrace our dreams and worry less of falling.” The majority of the text does not rhyme, but there’s a nice rhythm throughout, leading to a final rhymed sequence honoring a “loved-me-from the start good, laughing-when-I-fart good … always-blows-the-charts good dad.”
Throughout the book, we see a diversity of dads, of different racial/ethnic identities (and in multiracial families), physical abilities (four use wheelchairs), and gender expressions (several have long-ish hair). Two-dad families are among them, including on the final, emphatic spread.
One parent, too, next to the text, “Because that’s a dad,” has makeup, painted nails, and earrings; I’m choosing to read her as a trans woman who still goes by “dad” to her kids, as some do. Author K.E. Lewis has said that “This book is a universal song for all significant male adults in a young readers life who are fathers or assume dad-like roles and responsibilities,” so the character could also be seen as a cis woman who feels more like a dad. Either way, her inclusion is a nice reminder of the many ways that sex, gender, and parental roles and titles can mix and match.
As a lively ode to a great variety of dads and father figures, this is a recommended tale.
