Catherine Bailey's rhyming text and Fiona Lee's enchanting illustrations harmonize in Good Morning Main Street, a picture book companion to Goodnight School (illustrated by Cori Doerrfeld), which transforms an ordinary street into a whimsical world filled with personality and discovery.
A red cat observes as "Main Street blinks awake,/ quiet, still, and gray" and "soft light slowly spreads,/ bin by sleepy bin." A bookstore clerk leaves his apartment to do some morning errands, and the red cat follows unnoticed. "Shadows slip away" under rosy skies, and a "fountain gurgles on" while "yawning awnings stretch." A firehouse Dalmatian and a baby peeking over a parent's shoulder both peep at the red cat. With morning in full swing, residents congregate at a farmers' market displaying "cheery goods and crafts/ in every eager stall." The shop clerk picks up tinned fish and flowers before making his way to the kite festival in the park: "kites in midair dance/ for the crowds below." There the man notices "a purring sound,/ tender, soft, and slow." The clerk carries the red cat to the bookstore where they both start their day.
Bailey's sweet, gentle rhymes and the fanciful, childlike illustrations of Lee (illustrator, Can't Stop Kissing That Baby) are a superb match. The artwork, which treats inanimate objects like residents of Main Street, brings Bailey's text to (literal) life with a playful use of shading and expressive faces on buildings and trees. Clever wordplay is a treat for the ear while richly detailed pages filled with subtle hints of what's to come beg to be pored over. --Lana Barnes, freelance reviewer and proofreader