The Shape of You

Written by Muon Thi Van
Illustrated by Miki Sato

Kids Can Press — Spring 2023
From 4 to 8 | 32 pages

A thoughtful and unique meditation on the shapes found in everyday life, sure to expand young children’s thinking.

In lyrical language, a mother tells her small daughter about the shapes that make up their lives.

At first, the shapes are literal. The shape of their door is a rectangle, their table, a square. Water can be shaped like a cube or a cloud. And then she moves on to the figurative. The shape of learning is a question. The shape of warmth is a space waiting to be filled.

Some shapes change, like a child growing up, while some remain the same, like the triangle of the mountain behind their house. The shape of her heart, she concludes, “will always be you.”


★ “Destined to become a classic.”
Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW

“A special addition to primary library collections.”
— CM Magazine