The Big Once-a-Year Broussard-Bouchard Family Reunion

In a pleasingly bustling picture book, English and barber-opp commemorate an annual event that features recurring beats. Young and old, the many members of the Broussard-Bouchard family, most portrayed with brown skin, eagerly arrive for this year’s family reunion. Young Alaine visits with her great-aunts’ orange indoor cat, Big Boy, but after Alaine accidentally lets the feline outdoors, the reunion goes on around the worried child, who perches under a live oak tree near a river. As Big Boy appears throughout the spreads, dominoes, double Dutch, and more give way to “what they’ve all been waiting for—that first note of zydeco.” Accordion, djembe drum, violin, and more coalesce into music that has everyone—Alaine included—up on their feet dancing the Louisiana two-step. Kinetic illustrations, composed of colored pencil, gouache, and watercolor, offer a joyful choreography to festive, reiterative text (“Zydeco, pure and beautiful and stomping good. Zydeco, like a heartbeat”), making for a jubilant work in which all’s well that ends well. An author’s note concludes. Ages 4–8. (May)