A lovely and lyrical ode to finding connection, understanding, and a first crush.
Birdie is a quiet girl who loves books, nature, and blowing on “wishing flowers” (dandelion puffs). Yet “Birdie felt inside out at home and at school. Quiet as starlight and shy like a pill bug.”
When a new girl, Sunny, arrives in Birdie’s class one day, however, Birdie is entranced. “Sunny had freckles like constellations and a nature name.” Birdie wants to say something to her, but “two dragonflies played tag in Birdie’s tummy.” Birdie’s next wish is to be brave.
Sunny shows an interest in getting to know Birdie and Birdie does indeed grow braver. They play together after school, braid each other’s hair, and swing “so high their toes kissed the clouds.” It’s pure exhilaration. When they find a wishing flower and make a wish together, one says, “Mine already came true,” and the other responds, “Mine, too.” We don’t know which one of them spoke first, but it doesn’t matter. The feeling is mutual.
Author A. J. Irving masterfully shows but doesn’t tell as the girls sense a connection and grow close; the prose is spare but full of beautifully crafted imagery and dialog. Kip Alizadeh’s warm images echo the girls’ swirling emotions and sweetly capture Birdie’s blush when Sunny first speaks to her.
This is one of very few picture books about a crush between two young girls. (Others include Love, Violet and Chabelita’s Heart: El corazón de Chabelita.) Because even the most innocuous kids’ books with LGBTQ characters are unfortunately liable to misinterpretation these days, let me be very clear: This is (as are the others) a perfectly appropriate book for young children. The girls do no more than hold hands. The affirmation here of girls who have same-sex crushes at young ages is important and timely, for they deserve to see themselves in books, know that they are not the only ones to feel as they do, and know that it is all right. Their toes, too, can kiss the clouds.
Birdie has pale skin and red hair; Sunny has slightly darker skin and black hair.
Highly recommended.
