Milo Imagines the World by Matt de la Peña (review)

de la Peña, Matt Milo Imagines the World; illus. by Christian Robinson. Putnam, 2021 [40p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780399549083 $18.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780399549090 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R* 5-8 yrs

One Sunday each month, Milo and his older sister take a subway ride that always makes him feel like "a shook-up soda." He dives into his sketchbook, drawing pictures of people on the subway into scenes of his own imagining. Today there's a lady in a bridal dress; he pictures her floating joyously into the air with her new husband in a hot air balloon. There's a trio of breakdancers, and he pictures them profiled and shunned by a white shop owner and a doorman ("Milo doesn't really like this picture, so he puts away his pad"). The image that will haunt him later in the day is the blue-eyed, spit-shined boy about his age who's holding hands with his equally pulled-together father; surely he lives a life of luxury in a castle. When they finally exit and make their way into a line forming at a large, impersonal building, Milo sees the little boy again and realizes they are on the same mission: to visit their incarcerated mothers ("Milo studies the boy in the suit, his dad rubbing his thin shoulders. And a thought occurs to him: Maybe you can't really know anyone just by looking at their face"). Now he rethinks his images. Maybe the bride is wedding a wife; maybe the breaker crew is welcomed home by the ritzy doorman. Enhancing a text that flows like poetry, Robinson's artwork shifts between a thirdperson view of the action and Milo's naïve crayon-like images. Fans of Last Stop on Market Street (BCCB 2/15) may suspect another de la Peña curve ball; again his "Never assume" message, utterly and gloriously devoid of preachiness, lands solidly in the strike zone.