A poignant, visually rich depiction of a child awaiting the return of a parent.
A young boy expresses his feelings about his mother’s extended trip to another country.
This tender picture book by a husband-and-wife team begins as a Bolivian boy named Milko confides that he “misses Mama like leaves long for the rain this dry season.” Without her, he observes over the next few pages, home is unsettled: Milko’s younger sister cries inconsolably; Papa’s porridge boils over on the stove; and unlike Mama, Papa “is terrible at haggling with the fishmongers” in the market. Mama, it turns out, left Bolivia for Ethiopia at the beginning of the rainy season for a yearlong trip. (The reasons for her journey and its duration are not explained.) Milko has marked off 365 days since she left. Why hasn’t she returned? Not to worry. Mama and her “laughter as deep as the forest” bring the Narhs’ story to a sweet, soulful conclusion—although one that may require parents to explain the meaning of a leap year. (Two books among many that offer children more prosaic ways to cope with absent parents are The Invisible String by Patrice Karst, 2000; and Lily Hates Goodbyes by Jerilyn Marler, 2012.) Artist Knatko’s beautiful watercolor illustrations complement the text with evocative imagery and lush swaths of colors and patterns. Milko is portrayed with light brown skin and a riot of blondish curls.
A poignant, visually rich depiction of a child awaiting the return of a parent.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-73478-972-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chasing A Spider Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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
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