Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Children’s picture books
Weblink
www.heidibooks.com/

BRICK BY BRICK

Heidi Woodward Sheffield

A striking debut celebrating the warm bond between a little boy and his dad as they work hard to achieve their dreams.

Papi is a bricklayer, and he works hard every day to help build the city, brick by brick. His son, Luis, works hard too--in school, book by book. Papi climbs scaffolds, makes mortar, and shovels sand. Luis climbs on the playground and molds clay into tiny bricks to make buildings, just like Papi. Together, they dream big about their future as they work to make those dreams come true. And then one Saturday, Papi surprises Luis with something special he's built for their family, brick by brick.

Heidi Woodward Sheffield (heidibooks.com) has received numerous awards from the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators for her illustrations, and Brick by Brick is her first picture book. On any given day, she can be seen taking photographs of textures that inspire her stories and collages. She especially drawn to old brick buildings, and likes daydreaming about the strong hands that built them and the people who lived there. She lives in Northville, Michigan.

Available products
Book Published 2020-05-05 by Nancy Paulsen Books

Comments

Papi is a bricklayer, building a city, brick by brick, while his proud son Luis builds too, book by book. Juxtaposed in side-by-side pages, Luis shows how he can climb at recess to touch the sky, just as Papi climbs the scaffold... Spanish words both in the text and cleverly inserted into the backgrounds convey the family's Latinx culture, as do Luis and his father's lunches of empanadas and horchata. Illustrations done in warm tones use photographs, digital painting, and collage to show the close relationship between father and son as they work and play together to build happiness.

Richly illustrated with paint and collage, incorporating snippets of brick photographs that feature in both the cityscapes and Luis's cozy new abode. Parallel scenes of Luis' school day and Papi's work day subtly mark the passage of time... This could make a fine companion piece to Tate's Home Base: A Mother-Daughter Story .

Sheffield underscores the way children model themselves on the important adults in their lives in this loving, familial portrait of a strong father whose labor is honored.

BRICK BY BRICK is the Winner of the Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator Award

BRICK BY BRICK is a New York Public Library Best Books of 2020 Chicago Public Library's Best of the Best

Told in the first person, with minor Spanish interspersed and occasional sound effects printed in all-caps, the written text will engage the youngest readers... Lovely and heartfelt.