Simms Taback Books - I Miss You Every Day

What do you do when you miss someone every day?
If you live in the eloquently magical world of Simms Taback, you wrap yourself in paper, close yourself up in a box (don’t forget the air holes!) and mail yourself to the one you love.
Simms' most recent tale is about what a little girl will do to reach the person she just can’t live without. Filled with Simms' signature vibrant colors and dynamic characters, with a lyrical text that’s as silly as it is moving, this gesture of love will resonate with anyone who’s ever missed someone.
— from the Publisher

Publishers Weekly Inspired by a Woody Guthrie song, Caldecott Medalist Taback (Joseph Had a Little Overcoat) crafts a terrific and touching book. Someone special in the life of his narrator, an urban girl, is far away (the person and his/her relationship remain unspecified). So she concocts a plan to "send myself your way" courtesy of the U.S. Mail.
"I'm going to jump inside a nice big box," she declares, "I don't care what you say/ I'll write your address on the front/ I miss you every day./ Please take me to the post office/ They will sort me on my way/ I'll jump into a mailbag/ I miss you every day."
Having successfully arrived at her destination (with $1.18 postage due), the girl promises that all she'll need is a bath, supper, some candy, and a bedtime cuddle with a good book to know that "everything will be O.K." The naïve exuberance characteristic of Taback's art is very much in evidence here, from the colored, hand-lettered text to the puckish scale.
But while the girls's braids, hands and pink-and-green sneakers poke through the girl-as-package, Taback has dialed back considerably his customary goofy visual asides. In doing so, he enables audiences to focus their attention on the girl's yearning and determination, and he assures them that their constancy still counts in a highly mobile world. In a savvy design element, an envelope affixed to the title spread holds an card insert-a perfect pocket for a gift card, too. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

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Kirkus Reviews Kirkus Reviews Taback's trademark illustrations bring to life the adventure of a young New Jersey girl who mails herself across the country. Along the way, youngsters will subtly learn the workings of the postal system as they follow her vivid green high-top sneakers.
Emily Ann misses someone she loves very much. So much, in fact, that she wraps and decorates herself as a present, gets in a box and ships herself off to California, where she finds comfort in the simple routines of childhood: dinner, a bath, a treat and stories at bedtime.
Taback's vibrant colors and humorous details will delight young children. Gentle rhyming couplets add to the emotion of the simple story, and the lack of punctuation suits Emily Ann's impulsiveness. While visual clues at the end point to a father as the missed loved one, the tale is open-ended enough to suit many long-distance relationships.
This will likely open the door for a conversation about how they can keep in touch with loved ones who are far away. Copyright 2008 Kirkus Reviews

Booklist In rhyming lines, a young girl tells a faraway loved one about her loneliness, and also her solution: "I'm going to wrap myself just like a present... and send myself your way."
Minimal words and whimsical, bright, textured illustrations follow the girl as she wraps herself in brown paper, jumps into a box (with holes for her sneakered feet), and walks to the post office, where she imagines being stamped, processed, and sent by plane and truck to the address of her loved one (who is never identified). Her final instructions: "Tuck me in and read a story and everything will be O.K."
The book's title is also the text's refrain, and the words' repetition, along with each page's clear focus on the yearning girl, reinforce the story's potent sense of separation from a favorite person. The loved one's open-ended identity leaves lots of room for kids to imagine their own scenarios. Both upbeat and poignant.
Copyright 2007 Gillian Engberg for Booklist

Childrens Literature Rhymed couplets, each ending with the title refrain, describe how much a young girl in New Jersey misses someone in California. She misses the person so much that she wraps herself up in a package and mails herself across the country. We follow the package from post office to airplane to delivery in a mailbox with "postage yet to pay." But after a bath and supper, tuck-in and story, "everything will be OK."
The very simple story is overloaded with fun and details beginning on the endpapers, which are crowded with childlike drawings and greetings. The title page even has an attached envelope with a picture and message inside.
The deceptively childlike illustrations are produced with ink line and opaque paint; the process of self-mailing is depicted in a lively and literal way. There are touches of humor throughout, even in the windows of the airplane. The happy ending includes favorite picture books on the bed of the sleeping heroine.
Copyright 2007 Childrens Literature. Reviewed by Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz