These are both paperback picture books from Ivy Kids: thank you to the publishers for sending them for review.

Always Carry Me With You
Hervé Eparvier and Fred Bengalia

Despite the hard, often cold exterior of the book’s inanimate character, this story is full of love and heart. The love is that shown by a father towards his young daughter, conveyed through something one can hold in the hand – a pebble. He talks to her of its durable nature and longevity, mentioning some of its myriad uses and possibilities.

Without actually saying the words, this father is letting his child know that he will always be there for her no matter what, offering comfort, safe keeping and reassurance that she’ll never be alone.
Dads/ caregivers suggest you keep a pebble in your pocket and show it to your child before you share this treasure of a book that reads like a love letter to a little one. Both author Hervé Eparvier with his warm words and illustrator Fred Bengalia with his mixed media art, have done a sterling job capturing the marvel of an unassuming stone.

My Friend Tree
Dawn Casey and Geneviève Godbout

Two children grow up with a constant companion, an old oak tree. They play on it, beneath it and around it and sometimes watch it act as a food source for visiting birds and small animals. The oak provides shade and shelter, warmth and appears to understand the feelings of the girl and boy.
When the oak drops seeds, these fuel dreams of a forest and the children gather them, plant them in pots and place them in sunny places.

They tend the growing seedlings and once sufficiently grown, they plant the saplings around their Tree friend and continue to care for them.

Over time along with the trees, the friends grow, eventually forming a romantic relationship and having children of their own and now the oak is a family tree in more than one sense of the words. It flourishes in the forest and so does the loving family.

Whether the tree’s growth is taken as a metaphor for human growth and change or an example of plant growth and changes, this book with its minimal rhyming text and softly hued, glowing pastel and pencil illustrations, offers a view of the natural world embedded in a story that will likely ignite young children’s interest in growing things and offers plenty of potential in the way of discussion be that at home or school.