One for the toddler set, and the only pure fiction of the lot, is Higher, Higher. Remember swinging? It’s like flying. Almost. At the
playground, an intrepid little girl is being pushed on a swing by her dad. “Higher! Higher!” she directs, as she swings upward to greet first a giraffe, then children at play on a rooftop, a mountain climber, passengers on a plane, a monkey in a rocket (there were successful primate flights and returns, a colleague assures me), and finally, in space, she greets a small alien child exactly her size, swinging up from the opposite page. They hang
momentarily at the top of their trajectory, high-five, and then swing downward, descending in opposite directions. The child swinging back to earth says to her welcoming father, “Again!”
For ages 2–5. —G.L.
