"A striking, illustrated musing on children and childhood. On verso, white pages background large-print sentences that contemplate the nature of children, while on recto, mixed-media portraits of racially diverse children complement the text. The thoughtful, sophisticated art sometimes has a grotesque edge, ruling out as its audience those children who are still in the developmental stage that conflates fantasy and reality. Likewise, the text—both philosophical and whimsical—seems geared to adults and precocious children, as its beauty lies in hearing and pondering words rather than in following a story with a plot...If this did not follow the familiar trajectory of a book read before bedtime, it would be tempting to pull it entirely out of the category of children's picture books."