Book Recommendation: Gmorning, Gnight! Little Pep Talks For Me & You by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Illustrated by Jonny Sun
Some of you know Lin-Manuel Miranda as the creator of Hamilton: The Musical, but if you follow him on Twitter, you will also be familiar with his Gmorning and Gnight tweets. Miranda has teamed up with author and illustrator Johnny Sun to compile some of his most popular tweets into this lovely collection.
The Introduction, appropriately written as a poem itself, tells the story of how the book came to be:
The greetings are sometimes flirtatious,
Or cheeky, or weirdly specific.
They’re pulled from my life or my brain or my thoughts,
Terrific’ly Twitter prolific.
I don’t have a book of quotations
Or wisdom I pull from my shelf;
Most often the greetings I wish you
Are the greetings I wish for myself.
So if I write “relax,” then I’m nervous,
Or if I write, “cheer up,” then I’m blue.
I’m writing what I wish somebody would say,
Then switching the pronoun to you.
Each double-page spread features a pairing of a Gmorning and a Gnight complemented by Sun’s illustrations. These short poems are witty, emotional, inspiring, and extremely relatable. This is the kind of collection you can read straight through or savor slowly over time. You can dip into it anywhere and get a quick fix of positivity.
Gmorning, Gnight! Is overflowing with possibilities for mini-lessons, craft studies, quick writes, and poems to read aloud for the sheer enjoyment of it.