As a child, one Christmas my parents gifted me the book Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters, and as I held that book in my hands, something in me knew it was special. I don’t know that I had ever seen such a truly beautiful book. From the lush and intricate illustrations, to the shimmery embossed Caldecott Honor sticker on the cover that I loved running my fingers over, to the stunning faces and clothes of the characters, to the message of the text itself – kindness and compassion winning out over selfishness and greed – the entire book from start to finish felt like a treasure that I was somehow lucky enough to own. The fact that my parents had given it to me made it all the more valuable.
Some books are like that for children. It’s hard to know which ones will take on that magical quality, but when one does, it’s an incredible thing. Decades later the magic will still be undeniable. That’s the incredible thing about children’s books; they have a unique ability to take hold of us. I remember poring over the illustrations of my signed copy of one of Aliki’s books, mesmerized that a real life author had personalized it to me, and amazed at how much detail she packed into each picture. I unfolded the letters in the Jolly Postman as if they were secret notes just for me, wowed by the concept that my book had real life envelopes and removable letters and even mini books hidden in its pages. To this day I respond the same way every time.
And the beautiful ones, they are something else altogether. My copy of Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters has traveled with me through multiple houses, multiple children. The cover is worn on the edges in spite of my best efforts to protect it over the years, but I still run my fingers over the Caldecott sticker each time I read it. It still feels like a treasure.
This year for Christmas I felt a pull to get my youngest a beautiful book. I couldn’t describe what I was looking for beyond that – I just wanted to gift them a truly beautiful book. One they would hold and somehow know it was special. That’s not the easiest thing to explain to a store clerk, so I wandered a bookstore for hours, looking. I’d know it when I saw it. I turned to the internet and searched “beautiful books”. I browsed random website lists. Somewhere along the way, I stumbled on exactly what I was looking for: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse.
Apparently everyone else had a similar idea, because it took three days and five bookstores to find the single unsold copy in all of Columbus. But this was the one. The illustrations are subtle and gorgeous in their simplicity, the characters are endearing, the message is heartfelt and quietly significant. It’s just beautiful.
I wasn’t sure how my youngest would respond – it’s a very different book than the Dog Man / Captain Underpants / Bad Guys / Cat Ninja / Binky the Space Cat vibe they typically gravitate toward. This one is a bit like a modern day philosophical Winnie the Pooh, but even more sparse. It leaves a lot of room for the reader, and the plot is more of an easy meandering chat than an action-packed story. But luckily I was right; as we read it the first time together, I could see a little mind processing something they knew was special. After reading, they thumbed back through the pages, wheels spinning. They carried it around the house like a discovered treasure, brought it to the dinner table, read it again and again on their own, and tried playing the piano music printed on the end pages. Days later, we’ve looked up videos of the artist at work, baked and eaten cake (in honor of the mole) and they’ve started their own quiet drawings with sweet messages like “Love is an action, not a feeling”. It’s become clear:
A beautiful book has once again touched a child’s beautiful heart, and that is a beautiful thing.