Forever or a Day

February 15, 2018
A parental meditation on time's elusive nature.Like the TIMES newspaper truck drifting through early-morning streets at the beginning, Jacoby's narrative is more often allusive than direct. "You can almost touch it," she writes. "Some people pay a lot of attention to it. / Some don't." Small figures--notably three, two adults and one child--occupy a set of impressionistic urban and country scenes that begin with breakfast and a rush to catch a train, then move on to an idyllic visit with grandparents. Observations of time's passage, which can be slow or "quick as a heartbeat skip hello," parallel images in the pictures that play subtly on the theme, such as a toy train to contrast with the full-size one, or one parent and the mini-me child in identical poses. Following sequential views of a trip to the beach to make an elaborate sand castle and then watch it wash away ("Where does it go?"), a campfire singalong in piney woods, and a goodbye clinch, a night train back to the shimmering city leads to a cozy bedtime. What's the upshot? "We've only got what we've got," and the best we can do with that is to "love the time I have with you." The couple and their child are pale-skinned (one child and a parent sporting identical mops of frizzy, brown hair, and the other parent with long, black hair), but they travel amid an amusingly lively crowd that is diverse in both race and age.Big questions, simply put and answered, perhaps, as well as they can be. (Picture book. 6-8, adult)

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Starred review from April 16, 2018
Jacoby's debut, a meditation on the nature of time ("The more you try to hold it⦠the better it hidesâ¦. Where does it go?"), unfolds along with a visual story of a family's visit to a cherished set of grandparents. Two parents and their young son set out from the city, joining the grandparents for a day that starts at the beach, continues with fishing off a dock, and ends under a starry sky around a campfire. Goodbye hugs are exchanged as Jacoby voices a clear-eyed truth about time ("We've only got what we've got"), then offers a warm postscript: "I love the time I have with you." Dry-brushed watercolor-and-pastel images survey sweeping views of cityscapes and country forests, but offer fine detail as well: brilliant dawn breaking in the narrow space between two dark buildings ("If you look closely you can see it"), ripples in the water, a shooting star over the forest. The family's regard for each other is felt on every page. It's really two stories: one about time, and another one about love. Ages 3â5.

July 1, 2018
Jacoby takes the abstract concept of time and presents it as an extended riddle: "the more you try to hold it...the better it hides." Watercolor, NuPastel, and mixed-media illustrations lend a softness to the narrative and combine minute details, such as facial expressions, with large expanses of bustling city scenes, sky, water, etc. The lyrical, contemplative text lends itself to one-on-one sharing.

(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from May 1, 2018

PreS-Gr 2-The mercurial nature of time's passage is noticeable even to young children, who sense the difference between the spans of the approach of something dreaded (bedtime) and something eagerly awaited (a birthday). Jacoby's explication of time's slipperiness ranges from a poetic "quick as a heartbeat skip hello" to a prosaic "sometimes it helps the bus arrive." Her watercolor and pastel illustrations also switch moods. Whimsical figures gain detail through flicks of her paintbrush while expansive landscapes glow in layered applications of colors. A spread depicts groupings of passengers on a train and the text simultaneously conveys the rhythm of their heartbeats and the wheels over the tracks, "ba dum, ba dum, ba dum." A succession of panels shows the construction and erosion of a sandcastle. This is a book that bears repeated readings. Its treasures reveal themselves on close examination and its subject matter is, of course, profound. VERDICT A lovely lap book, exceptionally well-suited for intergenerational sharing again and again.-Miriam Lang Budin, Chappaqua Library, NY

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