Apart, Together: A Book about Transformation

by Linda Booth Sweeney, Ariel Rutland (Illustrator)

Overview

This bold, surprising picture book demonstrates the magic of everyday transformations (and introduces cause-and-effect) for the youngest readers.

What happens when 1+1 equals . . . something other than 2?

Apart, blue is blue and yellow is yellow . . . but together they make green. Bees and flowers together make honey. Soap and water become foam!

With playful art and a simple, lyrical structure, this picture book is a delightful read-aloud and the perfect way to talk about all the wonderful ways that, so often, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063264618
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/17/2023
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	1,098,263
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 10.20(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Linda Booth Sweeney is a writer, educator, game maker, and trampoline jumper who writes fiction and nonfiction for children and adults. Her picture books include Monument Maker: Daniel Chester French and the Lincoln Memorial, When the Snow Falls, and When the Wind Blows. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts. You can visit her online at lindaboothsweeney.com.    

Ariel Rutland is an award-winning designer and illustrator whose work focuses on themes of nature, curiosity, humor, and beauty in everyday objects. Apart, Together is her first book. When she isn’t drawing and designing, she can be found playing in the backyard with her three young boys and husband in Yardley, Pennsylvania. You can visit her online at arielrutland.com.  

Editorial Reviews

A sweet read-aloud for younger readers to help them learn how the individual is part of a greater community; a standout for conveying complex concepts in an accessible format.” — School Library Journal (starred review)

"A meditation on how separate things might make something new when they come together. Gentle, oblique reassurance for children who may be facing changes in their own families or lives." — Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

★ 12/01/2023

PreS-Gr 1—A short but sweet exploration of how separate things can come together to make something new, suitable for a wide range of ages. Vibrant illustrations are paired with calming rhymes: "APART, bricks and blocks are bricks and blocks, but TOGETHER/ they soar! APART, players kick a ball, but/ TOGETHER, they score!" Simple science ideas—"Soap and hands and water can become foam" and "Bees and flowers can make honey"—combine with more complex metaphorical ideas such as "Twigs and feathers and love TOGETHER make a home," with a mother bird and four baby birds on the final spread. There is potential to elicit further discussion about transformation with young elementary children, but the spare text paired with colorful and inviting illustrations make it suitable for a preschool audience as well. The children in the story are diverse in skin tone and gender. VERDICT A sweet read-aloud for younger readers to help them learn how the individual is part of a greater community; a standout for conveying complex concepts in an accessible format.—Carrie Voliva

School Library Journal

2023-07-26
A meditation on how separate things might make something new when they come together.

“APART, bricks and blocks / are bricks and blocks, but… // TOGETHER, they soar! / APART, players kick a ball, but… // TOGETHER, they score!” Likewise, in Rutland’s similarly spare illustrations, a random scattering of plastic blocks on one side of a spread is assembled on the other into a spaceship held by a gleeful light-skinned child, while on the next pages light- and dark-skinned young figures on a soccer pitch gather to guide a ball into a goal. Rutland suggests that something similar might happen when blue and yellow paint mix, when seeds and soil combine with sun and water, when bees visit flowers, and when flour joins other ingredients to produce a delicious cake. The hint of metaphorical purpose behind these observations becomes a little broader in closing views of a single bird gathering material for a nest and then nestling cozily in it with a brace of hatchlings: “Twigs and feathers / and / love // TOGETHER make a home.” Aha. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Gentle, oblique reassurance for children who may be facing changes in their own families or lives. (Picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Reviews