See Bip Grow! by David Milgrim

Alec Chunn is a Children's Librarian at Tualatin Public Library. He was a member of the 2021 Caldecott committee and co-founded the mock Stonewall Book Award blog, Medal on My Mind.

Milgrim is no stranger to the Geisel award, having earned two honors for Go, Otto, Go! in 2017 and See Pip Flap in 2019. Both of these books are from Milgrim’s The Adventures of Otto series. But there is another series—The Adventures of Zip—that has yet to attract so much attention. No more, I say! As far as I’m concerned, See Bip Grow! is Milgrim’s magnum opus. (Yes, all of his books more or less have the same title. I promise this one is special.)

The basic plot concerns two green aliens, Zip and Bip. Zip magically zaps Bip so that Bip—who appears to be a baby—will be tall enough to play ball. But Bip just keeps growing and growing and growing. Bip grows to big they end up in space. But, at just the right time, Bip’s magical powers activate and Bip shrinks back to usual size and lands safely back on their planet. I love that the sentence structures and repetition harken back to Dick and Jane books, but the plot is absolutely out of this world. It’s pretty standard Milgrim fare, but it’s so successful—and fun! When I look at the Geisel criteria, this is exactly the kind of book that comes to mind: repeated words (fewer than 60!), simple and straightforward sentences, illustrations that demonstrate the story, and a “page-turning” dynamic. All the boxes are checked. But it’s the tone and illustrations that send this book into superstar territory. This book seems to have as much fun being read as readers would have while reading it. I don’t mean that it is too self-aware or too clever for its own good. Rather, both the characters and the layout offer a sense of playfulness with every page turn. Bip definitely gives me Jack-Jack from The Incredibles energy (just look at that infectious smile). The layout creates a sense of familiarity—a sentence or two above an image of characters on every page—then quickly breaks it. Let’s dive more deeply into the illustrations. As soon as Bip grows too big for the page, the text moves to accommodate the change in scale. But Zip doesn’t move! At least not at first. So, it feels more and more disorienting until the static frame is broken completely. Each page turn starts to change the scale (and detail) of the whole setting as Bip grows even bigger. Then, when Bip shrinks, it flips and goes back to the familiar format and scale. It’s almost visually symmetrical. But the text is not symmetrical. The text takes readers on a journey that breaks the repetitive mold because the reader has gained confidence—and had a laugh or two—while reading. That’s a win in my book!