I really liked this book! It's simple and easy for young readers to comprehend and enjoy, but it still has a lot of substance to it, which is great. It was honestly really impressive how the author found this perfect balance. Bravo on that part! Additionally, the message is wildly important for young kids to see and read about. The message ties together numerous valuable things: family, love, community, friendship, appreciation, and connection. The author flawlessly combined all of these big ideas into one short book without overwhelming its readers. Even further, the pictures perfectly complemented these values. Bright and crisp colors, emotion, and wonder filled every inch of every page, and made for a really vivid story and book. Lastly, this book is highly inspirational and definitely encourages young readers to add a little extra love to their own communities.
However, I do have one very small critique to make. I think that the title doesn't really connect to the story as well as it could have. It's a good title, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't fit this specific book. I believe that making the title something such as "Black Love Day" or simply "Black Love" would make more sense, while still maintaining the idea that I think the author wanted to convey to readers.
Other than that, though, I really enjoyed reading this book and I know that others will too!

Black Joy follows a boy named Jaden, who notices a mural in his neighborhood focused on love. He learns about different types of love and how it can be expressed. I loved the community aspect of the story and it went along with the mural. The illustrations in this book are great; they are colorful and full of movement/life. The page count was short enough to keep my kiddos' attention and we were able to talk about love afterwards.

Thanks to Quarto Publishing Group - becker and mayer! and NetGalley for an eARC of this book for an honest review.