“If you were a caterpillar, you’d inch over milkweed, munching, stripes blending in with shadows and stems … You’d button yourself to a leaf, molt one last time, and wriggle into a blue-green chrysalis. After a while … you’d be a monarch butterfly … ” A second-person narrative puts young children right at the center of this wonderfully crafted story even as it conveys a wealth of information about other living things in the natural world. In addition to the caterpillar becoming a butterfly, “you” is imagined as an acorn becoming an oak, a tadpole becoming a leopard frog, a hatchling becoming a painted turtle, a duckling becoming a mallard, and a fawn becoming a white-tailed deer. Digital illustrations incorporating hand-painted textures show diverse children and their adult caregivers, each child observing a different one of the featured species. The story comes full circle in its final pages, focusing on “you,” who has grown from a baby “snug in a blanket” to a child who can “splash in the shallows like turtles and ducks, search for an acorn, a tadpole, a butterfly, leave your dear footprints wherever you go.” (Ages 2-5)

An ideal birthday or baby gift, Grow is a triumphant celebration of how young animals -- and people -- grow into unique individuals.

What would it be like to grow from an acorn into an oak, a tadpole into a frog, or a fawn into a deer? You would stretch your limbs into the sky, jump from puddle to pond, and spring from path to forest. Children learn to do these things and more as they grow from tiny babies into individuals unlike anyone else in this whole dazzling world. Life is full of change; this reassuring picture book honors the changes that make you unique. Grow is a glorious ode to the wonders of growing up.