The youngster may be visiting, but specific details in Grant’s softly colored art suggest that Grandfather’s cozy house—indeed, the entire verdant landscape—is truly home. As an unseen narrator exhorts readers to appreciate small joys both concrete and abstract (“the sunshine warm on your skin,” “the seeking, the aha! of finding”), the pair enjoy breakfast, then drive to a quiet cove. The ocean is calm, the sandy beach almost empty. The child revels in the hot sun and “silky sand,” the “sea-salty air,” and a dip in the water, with its “breath-stealing chill.” Elder and child savor “the sweetness of summer-ripe peaches” and just-picked blackberries. Swooping sea gulls, a tide pool filled with sea stars, a glimpse of whale fin, and the “finger-paint sky” at sunset all deepen the day’s delights. Most worth savoring, of course, is “the love that holds your heart tight,” expressed in snuggles and cuddles ebulliently given and received, despite the “whiskery scratch” of the older man’s scruffy, bearded face. The four-beat lines are both natural and propulsive, with internal rhymes, alliteration, and accessible diction. Caregiver and child present white.
