A tender story about kindness and trust, with illustrations that combine elements of both East and West in their silken colors and fine line. Mei Mei’s parents are dead, and her brothers, who had always been jealous of her, have abandoned her. She tries to live on her own by the sea, but one day, starving, she begs food from the gnarled old woman, Po Po, who sells shrimp-and-bitter-melon dumplings at the market. Po Po is cold and sullen, but lets Mei Mei follow her home, and soon teaches her to catch the shrimp, make the paste, and harvest and cook the melons. Eventually, Mei Mei even takes over the selling. The old woman is often in pain, however, and when Mei Mei massages her back, she tells the story of a youthful injury and hopes lost. Mei Mei sees in this a reflection of her own sorrow. Sailors from dragon ships come ashore to wrest food from the village, and a young slave sailor eats the bitter melon dumplings and finds in their strange taste a memory of his childhood. He seeks out Mei Mei, and Po Po hides them both while she scares off the sailors who come seeking the slave. Po Po offers her own wedding clothes and dowry to Mei Mei, and the last moment of the tale finds the three glimpsing a future of love and happiness for all of them. Lee’s colors are like watered silk and the sea: pinks and teals, rose and turquoise, contrast with the dark accents of Mei Mei’s long hair and Po Po’s white locks. A fine tale told with subtlety and beauty. (Picture book. 7-10)
Pub Date: April 4, 2002
ISBN: 0-374-39966-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2002
Fact and fiction dovetail neatly in this tale of a wonderfully resolute child who finds a memorable way to convince her father that the newly-finished Brooklyn Bridge is safe to cross. Having watched the great bridge going up for most of her young life, Hannah is eager to walk it, but despite repeated, fact-laced appeals to reason (and Hannah is a positive fount of information about its materials and design), her father won’t be moved: “No little girl of mine will cross that metal monster!” Hannah finally hatches a far-fetched plan to convince him once and for all; can she persuade the renowned P.T. Barnum to march his corps of elephants across? She can, and does (actually, he was already planning to do it). Pham places Hannah, radiating sturdy confidence, within sepia-toned, exactly rendered period scenes that capture both the grandeur of the bridge in its various stages of construction, and the range of expressions on the faces of onlookers during its opening ceremonies and after. Readers will applaud Hannah’s polite persistence. (afterword, resources) (Picture book. 7-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-689-87011-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fantasy training wheels for chapter-book readers.
Elliot’s first day of school turns out to be more than he bargained for.
Elliot Eisner—skinny and pale with curly brown hair—is a bit nervous about being the new kid. Thankfully, he hits it off with fellow new student, “punk rock”–looking Uchenna Devereaux, a black girl with twists (though they actually look like dreads in Aly’s illustrations). On a first-day field trip to New Jersey’s Pine Barrens, the pair investigates a noise in the trees. The cause? A Jersey Devil: a blue-furred, red-bellied and -winged mythical creature that looks like “a tiny dragon” with cloven hooves, like a deer’s, on its hind feet. Unwittingly, the duo bonds with the creature by feeding it, and it later follows them back to the bus. Unsurprisingly, they lose the creature (which they alternately nickname Jersey and Bonechewer), which forces them to go to their intimidating, decidedly odd teacher, Peruvian Professor Fauna, for help in recovering it. The book closes with Professor Fauna revealing the truth—he heads a secret organization committed to protecting mythical creatures—and inviting the children to join, a neat setup for what is obviously intended to be a series. The predictable plot is geared to newly independent readers who are not yet ready for the usual heft of contemporary fantasies. A brief history lesson given by a mixed-race associate of Fauna’s in which she compares herself to the American “melting pot” manages to come across as simultaneously corrective and appropriative.
Fantasy training wheels for chapter-book readers. (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-3170-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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