Dad's intricate, delicately wrought tattoos embody major touchstones in his life: his loving parents, meeting his wife, his military service, the birth of his son. He tells the inquisitive boy the stories, tattoo by tattoo, through bath time and all the way to bedtime. The mountain dragon inked on his father's shoulder is from a favorite childhood book. Eliza Wheeler (Miss Maple's Seeds) illustrates the story behind the dragon tattoo with a cozy, golden-hued scene of the father's mother reading out loud from The Ho----. (The title is cut off, but bets are on The Hobbit.) The upper-arm tattoo of fireworks and a Ferris wheel reminds his dad of a pretty girl: "Have you ever met her? You sure have." (It's the boy's mother, whom his father met when she was waiting tables at the Café de l'amour.) Wheeler uses India ink with dip pens and watercolors to make the tattoos spring to life, just as the affection and memories behind the tattoos live and breathe for the boy. Tattoos of ships, dragons, skulls, hearts, waves, fish, fields, keys and numbers combine in a magical jumble on the endpapers.
Tell Me a Tattoo Story is a tale of love and ink and the staying power that both promise. --Karin Snelson, children's & YA editor, Shelf Awareness