If I Was The Sunshine, a big, beautiful great good-night book

If pre-K through early elementary school kids had coffee tables then If I Was The Sunshine is one of those books that would be front and center. “Oh, isn’t that book fabulous”, the clumsy kid from down the street would say. “And those illustrations, the farm animals that were drawn by Loren Long are absolutely dreamy. They’re solid, yet ethereal and remind me of a place that I’ve never been to-but I sure want to go”, said the visiting art critic from some big city on the coast. “The size of the book is great too. It’s as big around as that dwarf white pumpkin we’re grew last year”, Sam the farmer from Georgia commented.

In this imaginary world of coffee talk all of these small children would be correct. If I Was The Sunshine is a children’s illustrated book whose mere presence makes you take notice. Boom, all one has to do is look at the book and it grabs your attention. This is a large book at over a square foot large this book takes up a lot of real estate on your shelf. Its height rivals those tall, encyclopedia-style National Geographic books. The size grabs your attention, the art keeps you engaged and the soft, rhyming narration will mellow out crabby children at the end of the day.

If I Was The Sunshine is geared towards those four through eight years old. Initially I questioned why they would include those older ages for rhyming, simple book. However, the answer to my non-asked question was within my seven year-old. He is reading, but he’s still doing sight words and simple sentences. As long as we don’t have to correct him or get involved, he’s reading. He, and those elementary school kids like him, are why the book is great for kids through 8 years-old.

The text, by Julie Fogliano, rhymes with every other line. “If I were a flower and you were a rose, I’d call you sniff”, it says on two pages that are jammed with flowers and a black and white snout entering from page left. “And you’d call me rose”, the poem retorts on the next page as we see a timid looking skunk making its way to a lone rose that’s growing in the field.

Like any good Seinfeld episode, it all ends where it starts. In this case the story starts at the farm in the morning, travels the surrounding area and finally sees a sleepy little girl being read a story in bed. This is a great good-night book.  What’s great about If I Was The Sunshine, and other books with similarly detailed artwork, is that you can go in depth and talk about the illustrations. However, if your audience wants to hear the book again it’s short enough to do so without them feeling like you’re rushing it to go downstairs and watch Stranger Things.

If I Was The Sunshine is a great good-night book. The combination of art and story add up to a book that will be one that kids in that demographic will pick up any time to read it or look at the pictures.