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

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)