First sentence: Many years ago, a young couple stood in a sea of chairs, searching for just the right one. "Look at that chair over there. It's perfect for the baby's room," the young woman said.
Premise/plot: Love and the Rocking Chair celebrates generations of a family and the legacy of a rocking chair passed on through the years. The book opens with a young couple expecting a baby and looking for just-the-right rocking chair. The chair is used when he is a baby and as he continues to grow. It is a chair he chooses to use in his own nursery when he's all grown up and expecting a child of his own...
My thoughts: Love and The Rocking Chair is a picture book for older readers. Dare I say it's a picture books written specificially with adults in mind?! It's a lovely book, don't get me wrong. But it's a book packed with sentiment and wisdom that only age can truly appreciate.
Love and the Rocking Chair is a bittersweet read. On the one hand, captured within this gem of a book are scenes of a family through the years. Babies being rocked. Toddlers being read to. Children imagining and playing. Children growing up, getting older, moving on, etc. On the other hand, it captures some heartbreaking moments as well. The husband/father getting old/sick, the wife/mother and the son standing together by a casket mourning. The wife/mother/grandmother wishing that her husband could be by her side to see his granddaughter. It's TOUGH, TOUGH I tell you on the heart strings.
It captures what life is--the way things are, the way things will always be in this world. LOVE is always present. Every single spread captures what it means to love and be loved. That's a difficult thing perhaps to capture in a meaningful way.
Text: 5 out of 5
Illustrations: 4 out of 5
Total: 9 out of 10
© 2019 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
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