Guess How Much I Love You
1994
- fiction
- juvenile fiction
- love
- fathers and sons
- bedtime
- hares
- ficción juvenil
- padre e hijo
- hora de acostarse
- amor
The story
Welcome the family classic with an elegant, refreshed cover — the quintessential picture book, just waiting to be shared. Sometimes, when you love someone very, very much, you want to find a way of describing how much you treasure them. But, as Little Nutbrown Hare and Big Nutbrown Hare discover, love is not an easy thing to measure! For two decades, Sam McBratney’s timelessly endearing story, beautifully rendered in Anita Jeram’s exquisite watercolors, has captured the deep and tender bond between parent and child. Guess How Much I Love You is one of the world’s best-loved picture books.
What it’s like
Soft watercolor washes in muted browns, greens and cream, with the hares rendered in loose, tender strokes against wide, open meadows and quiet woodland edges. The pages breathe: generous white margins, long still compositions, and a gentle rhythm of call-and-response that slows the reader to the pace of a bedtime voice. There is no real sound on the page, but read aloud it has the hush of a lamp-lit nursery, the murmur of a parent settling a child. The vibe is warm, drowsy and reassuring, the kind of book that suits a bedtime ritual, a lazy weekend lap-read, or a grandparent's lap on a rainy afternoon. Its emotional register is simple and sincere, following a small hare who keeps reaching for bigger ways to say how much he is loved and a patient father who always answers him. Nothing frightening happens; there is no violence, peril or cruelty, only gentle play and gentle comparison. It is written for very young children and the adults who read to them, and for anyone who wants something soothing, tender and wholly without edge.
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