Heart-y Reading: How Do I Love You? by Marion Dane Bauer

In her lovely little board book, Marion Dane Bauer borrows Elizabeth Barrett Browning's opening in her poem which explores the love of a parent for a child.

I love you like as a bird loves a song to sing.
I love you as a waking bear loves the smell of spring.

I love you as a cat loves a sunny sill.
And as the dancing snowflakes love the winter's chill.

Set off with appealing illustrations of a young child and her toy rabbit from illustrator Caroline Church, Newbery Award winner Bauer's evocative rhymes describe perfectly the organic naturalness of such love, as integral to life as the earth's "spinning" is to the creation, and as encompassing as the wide sky with each shining star.

I love all that you will be and everything you are.

Not strictly speaking a Valentine's Day book, but still a missive of enduring devotion, How Do I Love You? (Scholastic, 2009) is a beautiful way to say to a child "I love you."