By Angie Kang
Kokila / Penguin Random House, 2025
32 pages
978-0-593-69823-5
Ages 5-8
A visit to a special place is both a challenge and a comfort for two grieving brothers. The younger of the two, the narrator, follows his older sibling as they hike up a rocky path that ends on a bluff overlooking a serene, blue lake. The boy matches Brother’s motions as they warm up for their dive but hangs back when Brother approaches the edge. Brother leaps, “slip[ping] neatly into the lake.” From the water he calls words of encouragement, but the narrator’s “stomach is full of stones. How did I ever do this before?” Then, on “the inside of my eyelids, I see Father.” In his mind’s eye, Father soars gracefully into the lake. “Father’s laugh leaps through my bones, making them bird-light.” The joy of the memory remains when the boy opens his eyes, and as he dives smoothly toward the water, he glimpses something on the rippling surface—a reflection of himself, or is it Father?—with arms outstretched, ready to meet him. Brother cheers as the narrator surfaces. Words aren’t needed; the boys’ mutual emotions are understood as they share a hug. “Here, in our lake, we are all together.” Gorgeous gouache paintings in deep, calming blues and teals are offset by a sunny yellow that saturates the sky, especially in the narrator’s memories of his father, while polished writing imparts the tender emotions of the day with understated elegance. Winner, 2026 Charlotte Zolotow Award ©2026 Cooperative Children’s Book Center