While young Jay, portrayed with brown skin, counts the sleeps until his next birthday, workers help transport a volume—sharing this picture book’s cover—across the globe. The item’s trip begins at a factory, where it is “packed into a box by Cherry, moved along a belt into a crate, and lifted... into the container on Han’s truck,” Faber writes. Others, such as a gantry crane operator named Chi Wan, a container ship captain called Flip, and a warehouse scanner named Hannah, do their part, until Jay’s white-presenting grandmother buys the volume at Pip’s bookstore in anticipation of the big day. By relying on the specific names of workers, who are portrayed with varying skin tones, assonant lines lend intimacy to what’s typically a faceless process. Geometric scenes by Fahlén take place beneath blue skies, brightly spotlighting the process that results in books on readers’ shelves. A twist at the end fittingly drives home the message that people are at the heart of any “special delivery.” Statistics conclude. Ages 2–5. (Apr.)

Gr 2–5 —For a book to arrive into readers' hands, it must first undertake a very long journey. Here, the sojourn begins where it ends, with a boy named Jay anticipating his birthday 40 days away. Starting in a printing press in China, a book is printed and readers follow its journey from there to shipping container, to train, to bookstore, on through postal delivery, and into the hands of the young boy. Along the way workers are named, personalizing the trip and giving human characters a role in the industrial complexities of the modern world. The illustrations are dynamic; anyone interested in transportation in all its modes will be fascinated by the path of one book as it travels the globe. VERDICT A compelling glimpse into the ways of modern industry, and very engaging.—John Scott