Little Passenger

An adult speaker relates parallel gestational periods in this visually inventive book from young adult author Sullivan, making her picture book debut, and Love (The Poet and the Bees), which unfolds over the course of a single pregnancy. Beginning “Little Passenger./ I have made a space for you/ inside my heart,” sensorially anchored lines use anaphora to address the developing embryo, chronicling a gradual transformation from “a dot,/ a pea, a single grape” to “a cabbage,/ a pumpkin,/ and...// a person.” Light-filled watercolors seem composed of gentle stitches as they alternate imagery of flora and fruit, a pale-skinned adult with a baby bump sewing by hand, and a glowing pink figure in utero. As the moment for greetings nears, reassuring verse builds with welcoming anticipation (“Are you ready?... There is a soft place for you to sleep”), while illustrations reveal the purpose of the adult’s handiwork: a cozy quilt to be shared by caregiver and new arrival. It’s a warmth-filled portrait that binds the loving act of making a quilt to one experience of growing a family. Ages 5–7. (Mar.)