Booklist calls Matthew Burgess’s FIREWORKS “an electric, affectionate, and enchanting ode to delicious summer delights” in 4th starred review

Issue: May 1, 2025

Fireworks by Matthew Burgess. Illus. by Cátia Chien

May 2025. 44p. Clarion, $19.99 (9780063216723). PreS–Gr. 2

Burgess and Chien palpably capture the sensations of a city's hot summer day in this buoyant picture book. Two children begin their day over breakfast before heading out into the heat for errands that take them past a spraying fire hydrant, a jazzy saxophonist in the park, and dancy beats spilling out of car windows. After a pause for drippy, sweet watermelon, they head to the roof of their building for a brilliant fireworks display, which Chien renders thrillingly with sharp, bright pops of color on one spread and a glowing, page-filling shower of sparks on another. Burgess’s tight poetic lines poignantly evoke the children’s experiences (“bubble cheeks blowing brassy blasts”; “the sharp charcoal sniff / of a thousand matches extinguished”), while bouncy onomatopoeia jostles across Chien’s playful multimedia artwork. It’s a joyful celebration of simply being alive and experiencing the world in the guileless way children do, moving from feeling to feeling and appreciating whatever comes next. The final spreads, after the children prepare for bed, artfully tie the boom of the fireworks to the thump of a heartbeat, closing on their silhouettes, now full of sizzling specks of bright color. An electric, affectionate, and enchanting ode to delicious summer delights.

— Sarah Hunter