May You Love and Be Loved: Wishes for Your Life

Just the ticket for graduating seniors and other nest leavers: lyrical and intense, if occasionally a little vague.

Wade shares gladdening wishes in this benedictive poem accompanied by pen, ink, and watercolor sketches. Titular remarks bookend the speaker's hopes for the reader: "May you love and be loved// May you wonder, wander, and delight." Embracing learning, experience, and more ("And may you be weird. Very Very weird"), openhearted verse addresses emotional highs and lows, offering strength and encouragement. Natural motifs abound in the text ("May you live in awe/ in awe of the moon.... May the sun and her/ tangerine skies/ always feel like a miracle"), while visuals of weather, buzzing bees, nest-building birds, and the like support more conceptual sentiments. The image of a blooming cactus, for example, accompanies, "When the days feel/ long and hard/ May your spirit be/ sweet and strong." Layering on examples and ideas, word and image build to a benevolent vision of a well-lived life. An author's note concludes. Ages 3-6. (May)