Kindness Grows

Britta Teckentrup's die-cut engineering is genuinely inventive and the visual metaphor of crack versus sapling is one of the smarter concept executions in recent picture-book publishing, but Kirkus is correct that the text is banal and the meter uneven, which matters in a read-aloud book. The illustrations carry it and educators who lean on the art will get value, but as a complete picture book it is lopsided. Worth a library look before buying.