Too Early

It is some unmentionable hour between much-too-late and so-very-early; we know this because the room is filled with that unmistakable hazy blue gloom. There’s a white laundry basket sitting on the dresser, socks hanging over the sides; another balances precariously on an armchair that’s got things thrown all over it: a pair of shoes, a purse, clothes, a blanket. A tousle-headed little imp is backlit by the hallway light, holding onto a stuffed bunny with one hand. The body is angled in towards the room, the head tilted just so, and in the quiet space under the baby’s crib march the words: “I wake up very early.”

Too Early is about that early morning hush and the coziness of a child and their grownup being awake together just a little while before everyone else. Daddy hustles the child to the kitchen for a cup of warm milk (coffee for Daddy) and then out to the porch to watch the world wake up, leaving Mama and the baby to catch some extra sleep. Child and parent see the moon, find the morning star, hear birds begin to coo, and finally observe the sun starting to rise. Soon it will be time to “rush rush breakfast, rush rush clothes, rush rush school”, but, for now, the two can sit quietly and enjoy each other’s company. There’s not much story beyond that straightforward movement from bedroom to kitchen to porch, but there does not need to be any. The child’s engagement with each moment gives the simple, everyday things a charming quality: the sound the coffeepot makes as it brews, the way the dogs stretch as they yawn, the first streaks of color across the sky as dawn approaches, the fuzziness of Daddy’s face and hair and robe.

Both Ericson and MacKay have dedicated this title to partners and children, and I think a lot of love went into its making. The text is well-paced, and the words are carefully chosen. Too Early is a book for reading aloud and tasting the sounds: snuffle, burble, whooo, waaaaahh. The illustrations and text seem to match perfectly while giving each other a lot of room to expand. According to the notes, MacKay created the illustrations by drawing and cutting out elements that were then set in layers and “photographed with light” which I think means being backlit because the illustrations have a beautiful depth and glow. The characters’ body language is expressive: the child has that innocent engrossment of very young children, and the father is tired but attentive, without many words being said. The luminous colors and generous use of space reminds me of Ezra Keats’ Over In the Meadow.

Before the sun rises, everything is washed with blue, and, when it’s light, we don’t see the characters clearly from the front, but from visible features Daddy is probably white. Mama doesn’t seem to be, but I couldn’t say if she was Black, Hispanic, or Polynesian (if pressed I would guess Black, just as the most likely choice); what I can say is that the child has undeniably inherited a luxuriously curly head of hair and a cute snub nose from her. The child’s gender is unspecified in the text and illustrations. The setting is a suburban or possibly a non-urban area, and the house seems generic North American.

Too Early is a book for reading slowly together at bedtime or as part of a smaller storytime.