When an author manages to convey a mother's love for her child without getting trapped in a pit of sickly sweet gooey wuvvums, and an editor matches that text with an illustrator whose spare style brings more rich emotion to the project than any overblown, grandiose attempt at recreating Norman Rockwell's oeuvre but with, say, rhinos as the main characters, well, *that* is a book I can recommend.

Alison McGhee's Someday is the book that women of sense will read to their daughters.  With lovely lines such as "Someday your eyes will be filled with a joy so deep that they shine," illustrated by a girl discovering a nest of baby birds, and "Someday you will hear something so sad that you will fold up with sorrow," accompanied by a picture of a teen with her head on her knees, arms wrapped around her legs, and a letter cast to the floor, McGhee and Reynolds deftly bring to life a mother's vision of her child's future, even to the day their time together is a distant memory.

Will you cry?  It's a distinct possibility.  Is this the perfect gift for Mother's Day?  That depends.  I think it's a super book for husbands to give to their wives, "grandmothers" to give to their daughters who are moms of girls, or a gift to friends who are experiencing the joy of motherhood.  And sisters.  Never forget the sisters.  Part of me wonders if they will follow this up with a daddy/son version, or a mother/son version, because I think this is a book specifically addressing mothers and daughters.  The other part of me hopes they do not dilute the power of the book by trying to make it universal.

Go find this book!  And let me know what you think!