Children's Books - I Like You by Sandol Stoddard Warburg and Jacqueline Chwast

Book Review

At the moment I seem to be either reading thrillers or children's books. This probably says something deeply disturbing about my inner psyche, but I'm owning it.

Most of my children's books are ones I have from my youth, but I actually bought I Like You by Sandol Stoddart Warburg (Houghton Mifflin) a few days ago. I'm getting married in August (pause to hyperventilate as I realise how much I have to do and how little time is left) and I was looking for a wedding reading. We've already got one (from a book, obviously) but wanted a second.
Long story short we decided to stick with the one wedding reading as we couldn't find anything else that meant as much as the one I'd picked (I'll reveal it after the wedding). But when I was looking I did come across words from I Like You and though I didn't feel it was right for the wedding, it did capture my attention, so I bought the book.




I Like You can be applied to friendship or love and it manages to be sweet without quite reaching the point of inducing vomit.
It's somewhere between poetry and prose, almost lyrical, yet so simple that it lets the sentiment speak clearly.
This is no epic poem but rather the everyday reasons that someone likes someone else.

"I like you because 
When I tell you something special
You know it's special
And you remember it
A long long time

You say remember when
you told me
Something special
And both of us remember"

It at once captures the love of a child yet also how it carries through to adulthood.

"I like you because
I don't know why but
Everything that happens
Is nicer with you

I can't remember when I didn't like you

It must have been lonesome then"

Jacqueline Chwast's illustrations are the perfect accompaniment to the text of I Like You; simple yet incredibly expressive. They also include all kinds of friendship and love; children, parent and child, men and women, women and women, men and men, children and pets, alligators.
I was always going to like a book that had pictures of dancing alligators in it.

It may be thought of as a silly, simple book for children, but I Like You is light, timeless and funny, something we need in the world at the moment when so many horrendous things are happening. It's better for people to remember why they like each other instead of why they hate each other.

My review: 5 stars