When Papa Comes Home Tonight
Published 10 years after Spinelli’s When Mama Comes Home Tonight (1998), which was illustrated by Jane Dyer, this companion picture book has the same quiet warmth and sweetness. In simple rhyming couplets, a young boy describes the small, joyful things that he and Papa do together at the end of the day. McPhail’s beautiful illustrations, rendered in his signature crosshatched sketches in watercolor, pencil, and ink, show the intimacy between adult and child, starting when they rush to hug at the gate: “I’ll lift you up. I’ll swing you round. / And then we’ll go inside.” They cook, wash up, fix things, sing, and cuddle up as they read at bedtime: “You’ll tap me on the shoulder / I’ll kiss you on the nose.” Pets and toys are part of the cozy scenes, too. The endpapers contrast the bustling city streets at the beginning with the sleepy neighborhood at the end, as dusk turns to dark. Children will want to snuggle up with a parent, just as the boy does, to share this gentle offering. Preschool. --Hazel Rochman