“No one wants Chinese food / on the Fourth of July, I say. / Fireworks are Chinese, Father says, / and hands me a pan full of sweet-and-sour pork.” A Chinese-American girl grapples with issues of culture, identity, and acceptance in this well-conceived work. In the opening spread, executed in a printmaking technique similar in style to a woodcut, the girl leans against the gray door of her parents’ store wearing a long expression on her face and a red-and-white striped shirt with blue overalls. “I hear the parade coming this way—/ boom, boom, boom. / I smell apple pie in Laura’s oven upstairs,” she says. Yet in her own kitchen, her parents prepare chow mein. Later, a quintet of evenly spaced spot illustrations stretch across the length of the page. Text appears above the pictures of the girl sitting on a green stool: “One o’clock, / and they buy ice cream. / Two o’clock. / The egg rolls are getting hard. / Three o’clock. / Ice and matches. / Four o’clock, / and the noodles feel like shoelaces.” “My parents do not understand all American things. / They were not born here,” she says on the next spread, certain that the food will go uneaten. But her demeanor changes when customers start trickling in. Soon, she steps behind the counter to help fill orders. In the end, the story comes full circle as the girl heads to the rooftop to watch the fireworks with her family and friends from the neighborhood; on the final spread, she eats a piece of apple pie. All at once, cultural boundaries don’t seem quite as defined. (Picture book. 3-7)
Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-202543-X
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Cookie-cutter predictability.
After all the daring escapes in the How To Catch… series, will the kids be able to catch Santa?
Oddly, previous installments saw the children trying (and failing) to catch an elf and a reindeer, but both are easily captured in this story. Santa, however, is slippery. Tempted but not fooled by poinsettias, a good book (attached to a slingshot armed with a teddy bear projectile), and, of course, milk and cookies, Santa foils every plan. The hero in a red suit has a job to do. Presents must be placed, and lists must be checked. He has no time for traps and foolery (except if you’re the elf, who falls for every one of them). Luckily, Santa helps the little rascal escape each time. Little is new here—the kids resort to similar snares found in previous works: netting, lures, and technological wonders such as the Santa Catcher 5000. Although the rhythm falters quite a bit (“How did we get out you ask? / It looked like we were done for. / Santa’s magic is very real, / and I cannot reveal more”), fans of the series may not mind. Santa and Christmas just might be enough to overcome the flaws. Santa and the elf are light-skinned, one of the children is brown-skinned, and the other presents as Asian. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Cookie-cutter predictability. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781728274270
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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