《我为你们歌唱：给女儿的信》

    Although the poetic language is perhaps trying a little too hard and the text is sometimes too heavy with message, it’s a worthwhile book that stands up in its own right.

    A tribute* to 13 innovative* Americans, from Georgia O’Keeffe to George Washington, the book suggests that all the characteristics of these heroes are present in every child.

    The illustrator Loren Long has helped to make it a real picture book. The paintings are in a semi-realistic style and range from an almost photographic portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr. with a faint suggestion of a halo* to a Dalíesque* paranoiac*-critical method approach to Sitting Bull, where the image can be interpreted as a landscape with animals or the face of Custer’s great adversary*. Each portrait faces a question in the text. “Have I told you that you are creative?” shows Obama’s daughters looking at a girl holding brushes and a palette*, who in turn is looking across the page at herself in the future as Georgia O’Keeffe.

    “Have I told you that you are smart?” shows Obama’s daughters again, together with the girl with brushes and palette, looking at a boy holding a pencil and looking across at the mature Albert Einstein. (SD-Agencies)