Tell Me a Tattoo Story by Alison McGhee (review)

When a little boy begs his affectionate father to relate the story of Dad’s tattoos, Dad obliges. In what’s clearly a family ritual, Dad talks one by one about the tattoos that are reminders of his mother’s love, his father’s advice, his first meeting with his wife, his military service, and, most important of all, the birth of his son. The text verges on being too tranquil, but the narrating father’s lulling bedtime-story voice is apt for a tale of a sleepytime tradition. Gently detailed line and watercolor art focuses on the family, especially father and son, as they go through the evening wind-down from washing the dinner dishes to the nighttime bath to bedtime; the visual storytelling is clear and effective for young viewers, with the illustrations moving helpfully from each tattoo memento to its inspiration. Despite the prevalence of tattooed parents, tattoos are surprisingly absent from the picture-book world, so it’s pleasing to see a book redress the deficiency; this could give kids an opportunity to learn about their own parents’ epic designs.