Book Review: I'd Know You Anywhere, My Love

I'd Know You Anywhere, My LoveBy Nancy TillmanFeiwel and Friends, 2013Identity and the reassuring perseverance of motherly love are the twin cores of bestselling author Nancy Tillman's latest book for children, I'd Know You Anywhere, My Love, in which a mother calmly reassures her (perhaps mischievously) doubting child that no animal disguise could fool her loving heart.In scenario after scenario - each drawn simply in uncluttered frames and then colored with a very vibrant palette that seems tastefully computer-enhanced - an array of animals, from raccoons to rhinos to camels to African lions, appear, and in each group there's a skipping young one who's winkingly certain that an animal disguise is perfect. And in every scenario, in the foreground or background (but always signified by a bright sash of red, be it a scarf or a sweater or a hat), there's a happy, waving mother to see through the disguise:

If early one morning you put on your socksAnd declare,“For today, I'm a little red fox!”I'd say, “My, my … that's quite a disguise!”But I'd know it was you by the gleam in your eyes.

Occasionally the narration invites listeners and readers to do a bit more than imagine; sometimes, fun sound effects are called for:

White snowy owl? Among other things,I'd know by the flap of your snowy owl wings.Would you mind flapping them? Can you say, "Whooo?” Yes, without question, I'd know it was you.”

The underlying message - that a mother's love can't be fooled by either change of appearance or crowds - will appeal to children on a visceral level, especially children who've just started encountering their peers at school for the first time and are beginning to feel the first hints of separation. The natural speaking rhythm Tillman adopts for her prose lends itself to reading aloud together, and her prose, though winningly simple, is always very precisely evocative (for anybody who's ever had the dubious honor, "whiskery kisses" is, for example, extremely apt when it comes to giraffes).Tillman has used this formula - simple, straightforward, vividly memorable, optimistic - to create some much-beloved kids books in her career (including her best-selling debut On the Night You Were Born), and this latest is a fine addition to that roll call.