Hold On! I'll Never Let You Go by Smriti Prasadam-Hall

WHEN YOU ARE EXCITED, THE WORLD JOINS YOU...

YOU BOUNCE ALL ABOUT. LOOK! I AM BOUNCING, TOO!

Author Smriti Prasadam-Halls celebrates the ups and downs of the very young, always with a parent or friend there to share the exuberance of new experiences.  "Laugh and the world laughs with you," goes the proverb, but the author denies the second line, "Cry and you cry alone," in her just published board book for tots, I'll Never Let You Go (Bloomsbury Press, 2015).

WHEN YOU ARE SAD, TROUBLED WITH FEAR,

I HOLD YOU AND DRY YOUR TEAR.

With a loving parent always there for the highs and the lows of a first swim, a high swing, a bad dream and uncertainties, small animals with a parent at hand--a pair of koalas, owls, kangaroos, mice, lions, and bunnies--share experiences and emotions from elation to weariness in comfortable rhyming couplets. Accompanied by the genuinely adorable illustrations done in soft line and pastels by Allison Brown, who gently captures the variety of feelings moderated by the loving presence of an older and wiser companion, this board book is a sweet Valentine or bedtime story from parent or grandparent to a loved child, good to share with little ones just learning about feelings.