Darlena Glenn's Reviews > We Could Fly

To me a children's picture book is more than a beautifully illustrated work or a song lyric from a professional musical artist--it is a comprehending story that is relatable to young children when read aloud. I am an adult and I don't get the flying references. I work with Pre-K through Grade 5 as a librarian, and I can say from experience that little ones, in general, are literal thinkers. The figurative theme of flying is not clear to me and so when I see people flying up to the sky, I think of ascending spirits as in death or when I see people going off into the sky from water, I think of suicide. Particularly in this book because the ship on the page in the distance could be a slave ship, I think of the captured Afrikaans who jumped off the side of the ship to avoid whatever they perceived would happen to them on that slave ship. The only two people in the book--mother and daughter--both are wearing white, which in my mind symbolizes purity and being angelic. Again, it makes me think of death in that you may be bound on earth but not in heaven. If this is the intent of the author and illustrator, then I get it--I just don't think it is age-appropriate for an elementary audience without some present-day relatable non-figurative connection.