Of Love and Pies is a beautiful story of how, by the act of saying "I love you," pies are created and spread throughout the world. But what happens when a person says, "I love you," too many times a day? Thousands of pies appear all over the globe, filling people’s lives and surroundings. After a while, people become annoyed and exasperated with the number of pies in their lives; how long do they have to tolerate the pies? Protests arise between communities and laws begin to be written about the excess of pies. Everything becomes a metaphor for how much one loves to demonstrate their love for others. Should that love be silenced or not? Sheila McGraw brings to life a complex story on love and community.

I loved Of Love and Pies even though it is short. It made me think and analyze several aspects of it and life itself. Love is the strongest force in the world, and its constant spread is one of the things that make the world go round. The pies are also an intricate metaphor for community and society, the connection between people even though they are from different places and speak different languages. Love is the one thing that we know for sure we share with animals as a species; we understand so little, yet that is what keeps us close and related to other species. We think we understand love but we can’t avoid the truth - love is too complex for understanding and words; we all see and feel it differently. Thank you, Sheila McGraw, for this amazing story.

I can’t imagine having too many pies. But, perhaps like everything else, too much of any one thing can become overwhelming. How about too many “I love you’s”? Are the quantities of pies and the number of times someone says “I love you” connected? If so, there would be so many pies in the world that people would be playing in them, squishing their juicy goodness all over themselves and building pie trails far into the sky, perhaps all the way to the moon. Too many pies? Perhaps. There has to be a compromise, wouldn’t you agree? One pie for one “I love you” and restrict the “I love you’s” so there aren’t too many pies. We can always feel the love; we just don’t have to say it all the time.

Sheila McGraw’s picture book story, Of Love and Pies, is a funny, pie-filled story about love. Or, perhaps it’s a love-filled story about pies. You choose. Told in rhyming verse and accompanied by charming illustrations, this gem of a story will entertain and amuse young readers of all ages as they compare the need for “I love you’s” with the need for more pies. The plot follows the supposition that the statement, “I love you,” equates to another pie for each time the statement is shared. And this makes the possibilities both outlandish and humorous. Like the nonsense verse of Dr. Seuss and the compassionate loving bond of stories like Robert Munsch’s Love you Forever, this story will capture our hearts more intensely with each reading. Beautifully told and funny, too. Personally speaking, though, can one really tire of either "I love you's" or pies?