When his daddy comes home from the service struggling with PTSD, a young boy discovers that learning yoga together can be a source of healing.
Ever since Daddy returned from overseas, he’s been different. At first, Butta Bean thinks it’s his fault—that maybe his daddy doesn’t love him anymore. But Mama explains that Daddy’s mind is hurt from things that happened while he was away. When Mama takes them all to yoga class at their local YMCA, Daddy doesn’t want to go at first, and Butta Bean thinks it looks weird. But as Daddy and Butta Bean get better at the yoga poses (Daddy says he’s a real boyogi), Butta Bean starts to see a change in Daddy. He seems more and more like his old self. In a picture book gently tuned to a child’s understanding, award-winning author David Barclay Moore and Caldecott Honor recipient Noa Denmon celebrate the transformative power of yoga, therapy, and abiding love for your family.
David Barclay Moore is an author and filmmaker. His debut novel, The Stars Beneath Our Feet, was a Coretta Scott King–John Steptoe New Talent Author Award winner, a Time Magazine Top Ten Children’s Book of the Year, and a New York Times Book Review Notable Children’s Book of the Year. His picture book debut, Carrimebac, was illustrated by John Holyfield. Born and raised in Missouri, he has done work with Sony, Harlem Children’s Zone, and Quality Services for the Autism Community. David Barclay Moore is based in Brooklyn.
Noa Denmon is an award-winning illustrator who has worked with the New York Times and Google, among others. Her picture book debut, A Place Inside of Me: A Poem to Heal the Heart by Zetta Elliott, won a Caldecott Honor in 2020. Noa Denmon lives in Pittsburgh.
Moore and Denmon shine a powerful spotlight on a difficult topic, treading carefully and offering understanding and hope for families of veterans and other traumatized adults. Depicting self-care, wellness, and healthy, supportive relationships in the context of a loving Black family facing a serious challenge, this story makes a transformative contribution to the world of picture books. Denmon’s muted palette, with contrasting yellow and blue tones, effectively denotes happy and gloomy emotions and times, strengthening readers’ comprehension of the characters’ evolution. . . . Necessary and memorable.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
A sensitive, accessible approach to trauma and the mind-body relationship.
—Booklist (starred review)
Denmon’s digital illustrations juxtapose somber blues for difficult moments and golden tones for both the Black family’s warm memories and Daddy’s arc toward feeling “way better.” In conversational text that spotlights one family’s experience, Moore addresses an important but conceptual topic in a developmentally appropriate way.
—Publishers Weekly
