Review: Here Is a Book

By Elisha Cooper

New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2025. Picture Book.

Young readers may wonder how the book they're holding ended up in their hands, and this story will tell them just how it happened. We start with an artist who constructs a manuscript in her home before it goes to the printer. The printer makes the book, which then goes to libraries, to schools, and to the home of one child who begins to create her own book.

Elisha Cooper has one Caldecott Honor under his belt, and this lovely picture book about books will certainly receive award buzz at the end of this year. The illustrations, somehow both expansive and tight, give readers the opportunity to study and ruminate on the meaning of the expressive text. Readers will especially like spying the covers of classic children's books --driving home the message that all books begin in a similar place.

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