Booklist - 02/01/2010 “So many doors in all your days, so much to wonder about. Who will you be and where will you go?” Illustrated with cleanly composed, digitally touched linocuts of a child (who could be a boy or a girl) and a dog companion, this small picture book reassures young people about their own self-worth and life’s mysterious possibilities. “Wind will come before a storm,” reads the text above an image of the child tossing in a boat on a turbulent sea. On the opposite page, the child has fashioned a makeshift sail and skillfully steers the boat under empowering words: “You are a star trailing fire at night. You are a bird urgent for flight.” Some lines read like direct affirmations: “You are braver than you know.” Best are the lyrical phrases that remind kids about their deep connections to the natural world: “You are the beat of the sun at noon.” Sweetly reassuring for young children, this poetic offering will also have crossover appeal as a gift for young-adult graduates. - Copyright 2010 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 03/01/2010 K-Gr 2— This book seamlessly pairs lyrical text and digitally manipulated linocut illustrations in a philosophical offering that encourages youngsters to face life head on. The refrain, "So many doors in all your days,/so much to wonder about./Who will you be and where will you go?/And how will you know?" precedes each presentation of life's possibilities. All the while, an omniscient narrator constantly informs the young protagonist that she has within herself all the resources she needs. "You are braver than you know," assures the narrator, brave enough to fly as free as the birds. The lime-colored endpapers reflect the predominately green-hued palette within, depicting the girl and her dog enthusiastically exploring her world. She climbs trees, peers through binoculars, reads, stomps in leaves and puddles, and symbolically takes to the air and the stormy sea, her small boat afloat atop a giant whale and eventually coming ashore in a tranquil landscape. But that landscape abruptly fades to white with a page turn, for sometimes the path ahead is unclear. Whatever comes, though, the child is loved "more than [she] knows." This youngster is quite different from the rather passive child in Dr. Seuss's Oh, the Places You'll Go! (Random, 1990). Her enthusiastic embrace of life can spark a one-on-one conversation about daily choices and future possibilities.—Marianne Saccardi, formerly at Norwalk Community College, CT - Copyright 2010 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.