Carling’s first solo outing recounts a day in the life of her family’s general store in the heart of Guatemala City. Her family has fled a war in China and opened the store, stocking Chinese goods that are a hit with the local Guatemalan, Mayan, and Chinese populations. It is in the details that Carling finds her memory sparked, as she recalls lottery ticket and candy sellers; lunchtime, when her brothers and sisters would come home from school and sled down their waxed tin roof; the afternoon storms; laundry flapping on the roof; the clic-clac of her father’s abacus as he tallied the day’s sales. Carling’s watercolors are also about those details: the shop brimming with goods, the Chinese touches throughout her home, her mother applying lipstick before returning to the store after lunch. Through these scenes run members of the expatriate Chinese community, filtering in and out of the store to chat and have tea or a plate of fish and hot peppers. The tone of the book is subdued, but this is a remarkable and affectionate story of one family’s resilience, of grace under fire, of how a life can flourish under trying circumstances, and how ordinary scenes can be bracketed and transformed by a child’s “The day begins like this” and “This is how the day ends.” (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: June 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8037-2044-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
What if the market was closed when you wanted to bake a pie? You could embark for Europe, learn Italian en route, and pick up some semolina wheat in Italy, an egg in France, kurundu bark for cinnamon in Sri Lanka, and an entire cow in England (butter) before coming home via Jamaica (sugar) and Vermont (apples). The expertly designed illustrations in which a dark-haired lass journeys by various means to these interesting places to get her groceries are lovely and lively, and the narrative, too, travels at a spritely pace. The journey is neither quite logical enough to be truly informative nor quite bizarre enough to be satisfyingly silly, while the rich, sweet recipe that's appended will take some adult assistance. Still, fun. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: May 2, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-83705-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1994
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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