Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

It can be challenging to write about a picture book with die-cuts. Ideally, you manage to find a copy of the book to experience the book design for yourself — and let the die-cuts and page-turns surprise you in the ways they are meant to. I do hope you can find a copy of Pat Zietlow Miller’s See You Someday Soon (Roaring Brook, June 2022), illustrated by Suzy Lee (winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Award for illustrating!). It is a playful and bighearted intergenerational tale that bursts right out of the gates with color, shape, and movement.

The story is told from the point of view of a child who misses a grandparent, who lives far, far away. “Someday soon, I’ll see you. Even though you are there. And I am here. So very far apart.” These two opening spreads of the book use die-cuts and circles to accentuate the distance. At the page-turn, the die-cut circle on the first spread’s recto, which shows the grandparent, then surrounds the child, who suddenly looks as if they are on another planet altogether. Both child and adult stand opposite each other, the curve of the earth beneath their feet.

The child is insistent about their desire to see the grandparent. Lee’s imaginative, thoughtfully designed depictions of this are a visual treat. In one spread, the child’s head takes up most of the composition, and the grandparent’s face fills their eyes. Atop their head, as if readers are getting a peek into their mind, we see the two playing outdoors, blowing bubbles. Even though the two can’t be together, we read about the ways in which they connect — through letters, through phone calls, etc. (The child even envisions flattening their body “like a pancake” and sliding into an envelope.) “Do you know you can see me on your computer?” we read at one point. Given the past two very Zoom-like pandemic years, this portion of the book hits close to home.

Miller captures the child’s love for the grandparent with a loving ferocity: “I like seeing your face. But I’d like standing next to you more. Maybe we need a plan. To turn someday soon into … NOW.” Lee’s dynamic, sketch-like linework communicates the abundant energy of a child. I would say that I won’t ruin the ending for you, but the happy ending is pictured below. It puts a lump in my throat.

Highly recommended for reading … someday soon. Definitely sooner rather than later.

 

SEE YOU SOMEDAY SOON. Text copyright © 2022 by Pat Zietlow Miller. Illustrations copyright © 2022 by Suzy Lee and reproduced by permission of the publisher, Roaring Brook Press, New York.