The Green Baby Swing

By Thomas King, illustrated by Yong Ling Kang. Tundra Books, 2024. 40 pages. $18.99/hardcover; $10.99/eBook. Recommended for ages 3–7.

It is a wonder how many memories can be contained in an object found at the bottom of a box: memories that connect you to the power of your own story. Thomas King has written a book full of these wonders, through the eyes of a young child named Xavier. In The Green Baby Swing, Xavier’s grandmother has just died, and now he, his mother, and Comet the kitten head to the attic to clean things up. The literary catalog of discoveries is playfully illustrated by Kang in a panel series of windows: “a tuba with a gold tassel and a stuffed panda bear with a missing ear” on one page, “a pair of red shoes and a bundle of paintbrushes” on another. The paintbrushes belonged to his grandmother. The shoes were his mother’s. “You were a little girl?” Xavier asks.

At the bottom of a box, they find the greatest treasure. It is a piece of soft green cloth. Xavier’s mother shows him how to tie it around his shoulder to hold a baby, and she sings him the lullaby that goes along with it. She tells him that she held Xavier in the sling when he was a baby, and Nana held her. “You were a baby?” Xavier tries to hold the kitten and despite his mother’s misgivings, Comet settles in for a nap against his body. At night, exhausted from sorting things all day, Xavier, his mother, and Comet all manage to fit under the warmth of the green baby swing, and his mother sings them to sleep.

This lovely story with round, soft watercolors is an honor to memories, to grief, and to the discoveries that happen when you take the time to open up the boxes. Adults reading this book would deepen their appreciation by doing a little research about Thomas King, a novelist who often writes about First Nations and who has found many treasures in his lifetime of work supporting the rights of Indigenous peoples in North America.

---

Alison James is a member of South Starksboro (Vt.) Meeting.