This year at the reunion, Lil Alan’s family is celebrating 75 years on the land that Granny and Pa, his great-grandparents, bought, and Lil Alan doesn’t know what gift to give Granny. Lil Alan pays attention, not just to what his siblings and cousins plan to do for Granny—sing a hymn, recite a Langston Hughes poem, make a scrapbook—but to conversations and stories about the land and their family history on it. “Think with your heart,” Daddy tells him. When the time comes for Lil Alan to give a gift to Granny, his presentation isn’t polished, but it’s heartfelt: a cloud of cotton from a plant, for all the quilts Granny’s made, a pecan for all the trees Pa planted and the kids still love to climb, and a pinch of dirt for the land that belongs to all of them. “'That’s alright,’ I hear Granny say.” Striking acrylic wash illustrations, with various patterns incorporated throughout, further ground this fictional African American family’s strong sense of identity and history. (Ages 5–8)