Beautiful Brown Eyes

Marianne Richmond's Beautiful Brown Eyes is a sweet little book about all the things we see when we look at our children's eyes. In a realistic dialogue between a mother and child, it reaffirms the connection parents have with their little ones, the way we learn to "read" them, their moods and expressions, the way we stalk them with our cameras trying to capture those little faces.

All the eyes in the book are brown and Richmond's artwork, a mixture of paint and collage, is reminiscent of Karen Katz, but softer and more textured. The colors are earthy, muted and homey -- a nice match to the text. If you don't have a brown-eyed child, don't worry: according to Richmond's blog, there will eventually be a Beautiful Blue Eyes as well. This is a nice little bedtime or naptime book, probably for one-, two- or three-year olds.