This Is the Day!

I love this book. The illustrations are so happy and fun and the story is delightful.

As an adoptive mom, I know what a sensitive topic adoption can be--and how touchy various depictions of the adoption process, from either side, often are. But I'd hate to see us all become so hyper-sensitized that we reject a lovely, lyrical book like _This is the Day_ out of some misguided protective impulse. My daughter, 5 1/2, is fascinated by all aspects of adoption, and I won't hesitate to include this playful, quaint, and fanciful tale among our reading. The "folks" roots of this tale and Price's effervescent illustrations make the fantastical, mythical nature of the story clear to all but the very youngest or most literal minds. My daughter finds _This is the Day_ as charmingly preposterous as (and infinitely less creepy than) _The Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly_. A beautiful addition to a child's read-aloud library.

An adaptation of a folk song stretching back at least a century, This is the Day! presents its subject of newborn babies and adoption in lighthearted verse. While the origins of the folksong are lost in mists of the past (the title page speculates that the song comes from the Ozarks, the American West, or WWII soldiers), Phillis Gershator modernizes it in a way that gets the tone just right. Out of curiosity, I "googled" the original folksong to find the lines, "This is the day we give babies away/ With a half a pound of tea/ You just open the lid, and out pops the kid / With a twelve month guarantee." But what began in its historical form as a nonsense rhyme becomes with Gershator's deft revision much lovelier, fitting verse: "They're waiting for you to / kiss their toes / sing lullabies, / and rock them to sleep." Marjorie Priceman's airy illustrations complement the story perfectly with her lush palette of primary watercolors. Any parent who has ever experienced their toddler pointing and exclaiming, "Look, another baby!" will immediately understand the appeal of this wonderful, folksy book.