Long description:

“A subtle, deceptively simple book about inclusion, hospitality, and welcoming the ‘other.’” &&&8212;Kirkus Reviews

“A boundlessly inclusive spirit...This open-ended picture book creates a natural springboard for discussion.” &&&8212;Booklist

“This sweet extended metaphor uses an umbrella to demonstrate how kindness and inclusion work...A lovely addition to any library collection, for classroom use or for sharing at home.” &&&8212;School Library Journal

In the tradition of Alison McGhee’s Someday, beloved illustrator Amy June Bates makes her authorial debut alongside her eleven-year-old daughter with this timely and timeless picture book about acceptance.

By the door there is an umbrella. It is big. It is so big that when it starts to rain there is room for everyone underneath. It doesn’t matter if you are tall. Or plaid. Or hairy. It doesn’t matter how many legs you have.

Don’t worry that there won’t be enough room under the umbrella. Because there will always be room.

Lush illustrations and simple, lyrical text subtly address themes of inclusion and tolerance in this sweet story that accomplished illustrator Amy June Bates cowrote with her daughter, Juniper, while walking to school together in the rain.

Illustrator Bates applies her signature watercolor, gouache, and pencil style to a quiet story about a smiling umbrella, a tale sparked by a conversation with her seventh-grade daughter, co-author Juniper Bates.The eponymous rain protection is a big, red, friendly, helpful umbrella that sits near the front door and "likes to spread its arms wide" when it rains. As the pages turn, the umbrella grows in size, its smile ever widening, "to give shelter." It gathers all in—tall, hairy, plaid. "It doesn&&&39;t matter how many legs you have," the omniscient narrator assures, as a basset hound droops forlornly outside its shelter before being welcomed in. While the book does not bill itself as political, it is hard to read it without thinking of current events—and of the umbrella as a metaphor for the United States. "Some people worry that there won&&&39;t be enough room under the big umbrella," the narrator warns. "But the amazing thing is…there is." The final spread of this gentle picture book is an illustration of diverse people in a park: a black jogger; a white man in a wheelchair with a small dog on a leash; a brown woman wearing a hijab with a butterfly in her palms; two men and three children (in child seats), all of different skin colors, riding a tandem bike. A subtle, deceptively simple book about inclusion, hospitality, and welcoming the "other."(Picture book. 3-6)