Mighty Family

Going Down Home With Daddy
​by Kelly Starling Lyons ill Daniel Minter

"We are a mighty family!" Daddy booms.
​"Mighty!" we roar back.

It's time for the annual family reunion. Lil’ Alan along with dad, mom, and sister pile into the family car and head off for a weekend with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and "more cousins than I can count." They meet at the home place, where great- grandma Granny lives. The weekend is spent swapping stories, touring the family's land on a John Deere tractor, worshiping, and feasting on traditional "love-made” food. It’s a joyous gathering.

Young Alan worries: what can he share at the night's final ​celebration? He can't sing or recite. He didn't create anything. What will he do? Daddy advises,
"Think with your heart."

He becomes aware of the connection that family members share with the land. These feelings sink deep into his heart. Eventually Lil’ Alan realizes he has something special to share.

Kelly Starling Lyons' poetic text is bursting with glorious language and images. Granny, with her "peppermint kisses," fireflies that "wink and whirl in a carnival around us" offer more than sparkling descriptions. They embue the family's soul into each page.

They dreamed on this land as they made a way out of no way...

Daniel Minter's brilliant use of color is purposeful and evocative. As the family shares stories and memories, the color palette is predominantly blue, echoing grandma's favorite color.  As they reminisce, family members faces stand out among the soft blue heart-shaped background patterns.
While Lil' Alan and his father travel through the family's land, the colors become warm reds, yellows, greens. Minter artfully uses outlined linear patterns of cotton, family trees, pecans, and leaves motifs to reinforce the important of the family's agrarian roots.

Going Down Home with Daddy is a resplendent tribute to family, to the ability to do more than survive, to thrive, to build a legacy of family pride and belonging for generations to come. I love this book!

Hand in hand, we create a ring inside the house Pa built for Granny.
Heart to heart, we share what we're thankful for.

Electronic copy provided by publisher.

Pub date: April 1, 2019  Publisher: Peachtree Publishing Company  ISBN:  978-1561459384