Age: Preschool-3rd grade
Family: Grandmother and granddaughter
Nature: Sunrise

This picture book has an amazingly wide reach for its audience. On its surface, Roundtree recalls a cherished memory of her grandmother and her picking blackberries in the forest. The grandmother is protective and encourages her granddaughter to be brave, alongside her grandma, during the dark hours of the dawn as they explore the forest. The detail of the experience and the environmental surroundings is lush and comforting. And the description of the sunrise is joyous and fills you with warmth.

Generally, this will make a lovely picture book for preschool and up. But this was told by a woman who experienced unjust discrimination in her life during the era of Jim Crow and "separate but equal." Her grandmother experienced acts of violence and brutality during the Reconstruction era. And yet this book provides an allegory for hope, persistence, and the power of familial role models in our lives. As the sunrise is shared between grandmother and granddaughter, so too are these themes about reaching for a better world.