What We'll Build: Plans for Our Together Future

by Oliver Jeffers Narrated by Oliver Jeffers

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Gorgeously crafted, both lyrically and visually, Oliver Jeffers adds to his library of timeless, heartfelt classics with What We’ll Build: Plans for Our Together Future. Anchored in the importance of family, there is an equally powerful thread of accepting others and being open with love and kindness. Truly a story that can be appreciated by all ages.

An instant New York Times bestseller!

From Oliver Jeffers, world-renowned picture book creator and illustrator of The Crayons' Christmas, comes a gorgeously told father-daughter story and companion to the #1 New York Times bestseller Here We Are!

What shall we build, you and I?
Let's gather all our tools for a start.
For putting together . . .
and taking apart.

A father and daughter set about laying the foundations for their life together. Using their own special tools, they get to work, building memories to cherish, a home to keep them safe, and love to keep them warm.

A rare and enduring story about a parent's boundless love, life's endless opportunities, and all we need to build a together future. The perfect baby shower gift or gift for new parents!


Praise for What We'll Build:

"[Has] the offbeat, sweet style Jeffers' fans know and love." --Kirkus Reviews

"An intensely personal statement of intergenerational fellowship and an obvious pick for library shelves best explored at home." --School Library Journal

"Children will love his playbook for building a future of love and imagination, and they will delight in the special relationship the father and daughter share." --Booklist

"Stroked in generous swaths of warm color and Jeffers's signature childlike scribbles . . . .. Jeffers's benediction portrays a parent who surrounds his child with love and steadies her as she learns how to bring her dreams to fruition." --Publishers Weekly

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Jeffers fills the pages with . . .  a giggle-inducing assortment of creatures . . . . it has the offbeat, sweet style Jeffers’ fans know and love." —Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

2020-07-28
An adult and child gather tools and prepare for a future together.

Some things they build are rife with symbolism, such as a shelter to store what they value (including some “love” they set aside) and futures they build for each other, depicted as a series of items in blue and pink waves that spring from a wristwatch. Others are more concrete, like the fortress they build to repel “enemies,” whom they later invite in for tea and apologies. Some of what they build is fantastical (a road to the moon). The book is dedicated to the author’s daughter and is considered a companion piece to Here We Are, published in 2017 and dedicated to his son, though the pair here could still be interpreted as having a different type of caretaker-child relationship. Camaraderie between the two is the thematic focus in this affectionate narrative. Portions of the text’s meaning are somewhat vague (the two lie next to a fire that will “keep us warm like when we’re born”), and the rhyming text, with moments of inconsistent meter, occasionally feels forced. Jeffers fills the pages with an odd, giggle-inducing assortment of creatures; the duo’s former foes include a one-eyed pirate, a witch, a Viking, and (in a very poorly timed choice) a white-coated doctor with a surgical mask, and there are a friendly octopus and birds in space helmets. Adult and child both present White. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-19-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Though straining in spots, it has the offbeat, sweet style Jeffers’ fans know and love. (Picture book. 4-9)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940176023794
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	02/09/2021
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	Up to 4 Years

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