This Is Not a Valentine

Two children give each other small gifts throughout the school day—a paper airplane, a lucky rock, the jelly side of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich—all the while insisting the items are NOT Valentines. Valentines, of course, are pink and sparkly and scented like flowers; these tokens of affection are decidedly NOT that. The secret, of course, is that the best gifts, the best Valentines, are simply things that we know the other person will like.

This is NOT a Valentine is a cute story about friendship and childhood crushes, a celebration of all the small things in life that can show other people we pay attention to them and we care. Watching the children present each other with things they know the other will love, even if it’s not shiny or expensive, is extremely heartwarming. On the downside, the book does seem overly long; the children don’t need to go through quite so many gifts for readers to get the point.

The art style mimics the crayon drawings a child might do, effectively drawing readers into the heartfelt simplicity of the story. Though the book is Valentine’s-Day themed, it could be read any day of the year.