Sniffles Time: What a Cold Needs by Barbara Bottner

WHAT DOES A COLD NEED?

It needs Mom's cool hand on the forehead, your own box of tissues, and some well-worn pajamas...

It also needs a window open to the spring sound of birds singing, cozy socks and chicken soup made by Grandma, Granddad's kiss and some silly jokes from Daddy.

A cold definitely needs...

... a good book.. and if you're lucky, Grandpa strumming his guitar...

A cold needs a radio softly playing, a puppy snoozing on your bed, and...

... a long, deep afternoon nap.

Colds need someone to feel sorry for you and someone to tell you it'll go away soon.

What a cold needs is...

... love and ... a little time.

In a soothing book for youngsters, noted author Barbara Bottner's What a Cold Needs (Neal Porter/Holiday House Books, 2019) evokes the comforting care of a kind family during the all-too-common colds of childhood.

Artist Chris Sheban provides the gently charming illustrations done in the soft textures of smudged pencil and the pastel hues of the oft-washed pajamas worn by a girl, one whose whose red nose tells the tale of a short illness. Inevitably, that red nose fades to be replaced by the ruddy cheeks of a no-longer ailing girl--who can now play outside and come back in to hug her dad, who is now wearing the pajamas and red nose. Kids will love the humor of this book, and grown-ups will feel a touch of nostalgia for those days when they got new crayons and got to take their sick days in bed.

This book is a literary get-well card for sick kids, done, as Kirkus Reviews put it, with "with lyricism and whimsy."