You Belong Here by M.H. Clark (InfoSoup)

This poetic picture book celebrates both nature and the child themselves. The book opens with the text talking right to the child, telling them that just as the moon and stars belong so do they belong right with the person reading the book. It then moves on to talk about different animals and how they belong too either deep in the sea, in the woods, or in a nest. Then the book returns to the child and it continues to move back and forth between nature and child, demonstrating how much that child simply belongs to the world as well.

Told in rhyme, this picture book’s poetry is very well done with none of the rhymes feeling forced. In fact, the text almost dances particularly as it moves between child and nature, each of those transitions feeling a little like a graceful twirl to bring to back around in a circle. There is attention throughout too to ecosystems and showing how each animal or plant has a place that is important and vital to that place. It’s a book that creates both warmth and the opportunity for conversation as well.

The illustrations by Arsenault are subtly colored and almost ethereal. They show the intertwining nature of the world with buildings and homes interspersed with natural scenes of animals and plants. The creatures on the page are almost lit from within, white against the watercolor backgrounds.

A beautiful celebration of home and the world that all sorts of families will find welcoming and heart warming. Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from library copy.