But There Are!

9,This thought-provoking, playful picture book from NYT Best Children's Book author Bruce Handy and Ezra Jack Keats Award winning illustrator Ashleigh Corrin plays with the idea of how life would be if certain of the things we love most were no longer here. A New York Times Best Children's Book of 2023! A Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book of 2024! An Academy of American Poets' Featured Fall Book for Young Readers! A Bookstagang Best of 2023 Winner: Best Illustration!What if one day, all the birds flew away? Mornings would be quieter. Skies would be plainer. Worms could relax. What if there were no more bugs? What if there ceased to be day and night? By asking how our world would change if it lacked birds, water, or people, and how we would feel about that, this playful text from Bruce Handy (The Happiness of a Dog with a Ball in Its Mouth), accompanied by joyful art from Ashleigh Corrin (Layla's Happiness), invites readers to celebrate the beauty and wonder of existence, and all that makes our world what it is. So often, our gaze is on the future, on that better world to come, but what if the world as it is--with light and water, salt, earth, and animals, plants and insects, air and stars and French fries--is sufficient, and it is only us who have not known how to cherish it, or to love it all well enough? This book reminds us that all we need is here, if only we attend!