Parents' Guide to Sidewalk Flowers

This delicate wordless picture book needs no text to convey its hushed but powerful message about stopping to notice and share the beauty in life. As a little girl and her father walk home from errands, the girl finds weedy wildflowers sprouting from the cracks of the sidewalk and walls. She picks them, then distributes the flowers to others along her walk. At the start of the book, the art is mostly black and white, so the girl in her red jacket stands out, as do the delicately colored flowers she picks. But as the story progresses, illustrator Sydney Smith adds more and more color. The flowers are humble, including dandelions, underscoring the simplicity and everyday quality of the beauty.

The child's point of view is perfectly portrayed, as is the loving family -- the mom welcoming the girl home with a hug, and the dad patient and gentle, extending a hand for the girl to hold when she runs to catch up. The urban neighborhood is comfortably integrated, carrying an implicit message of diversity and inclusion. Friends and neighbors are people of color, and people on the sidewalk include an Asian shopkeeper and a woman in a hijab.