Each year my family reads all the Goodreads-award-nominated picture books, and we have been doing this for years. Everyone rates each book and adds a comment and it may (or may not) affect my overall rating. This is book #2 of 2018.
Lyra (11): (11) 4.5 stars. I love how the story has a different kid in every segment, with a different race, gender and age. I like how it shows what they each truly love.
Hank (12): 3 stars. It was ok. I didn't really get it.
Harry (13): 2.5 stars. I didn't get the point.
Penn (family friend): 5 stars. Beautiful writing, illustrations, and narrative.
Tara: 4 stars. I like some of the bits and some less so. I kind of wish it had followed one kid all the way through to be more cohesive.
Dave: 3 stars. Even before I read this I thought that it was some chutzpah to title your book Love. What is the most written about topic in the history of literature? Woody Allen's movie Love and Death can tell you the top two, and the point of his title was ironic, as if this schlep could write the Great World Novel on these topics. De la Pena, without irony, as recent Newbery award-winner, and Long, a multiple New York Times #1-selling picture book illustrator (we are told), feel like they earned the right to claim that title.
And it's pretty, page after page, and each page has some good writing on it, but it didn't add up to anything really memorable for me, and a couple kids I read it with were not impressed by it. They kind of shrugged at it. For kids they would need more focus or some hook.
"In the beginning there is light
and two wide-eyed figures standing near the foot of your bed
and the sound of their voices is love."
I like that a lot, the opening. Then, just randomly, later:
"A cab driver plays love softly on his radio
while you bounce in back with the bumps of the city
and everything smells new, and it smells like life."
I like that writing, too, but it is obtuse, overall, too vague to be really useful for kids. The point of the book is that love is everywhere and different for everyone and necessary for our survival, all true. But you need a better hook to make us remember and care, Matt! Maybe this book is for adults; this is good, 3 stars, for me, but I think less good for kids.