Remember

Tran locates home in the embrace of a child’s mother in this visually epic epistolary story. Opening, a child awakens alone to find a note: “Dear son, Mom is going to work early today.” Spare instructions next offer reminders for the day, and skillfully emotive page-filling illustrations show the youth exploring larger-than-life urban surroundings as the note unfurls. “Remember to find/ the sweetest melons/ by listening to/ their heartbeats,” reads text while the child, depicted as comparatively miniature, peeks out from behind a watermelon, presented as magnitudes larger. Later, the kid stands in awe before a shop full of candy, and as the day comes to a close, a rainstorm fills the page with smudgy splotches of color until at last Mom and child joyously reunite again at home—the conclusion to an adventurous day out. An author’s note reveals that the story is drawn from memories of childhood days spent wandering his Vietnam hometown. Ages 4–7. (Feb.)