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YUKI’S RIDE HOME by Manya Tessler

YUKI’S RIDE HOME

by Manya Tessler & illustrated by Manya Tessler

Pub Date: Jan. 1st, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-59990-023-0
Publisher: Bloomsbury

Yuki, a young girl of Japanese ancestry, lives just across a short bridge from the small island where her Japanese grandmother lives and, for the first time tonight, her mom is allowing her to bike home alone. After a day and evening of happy activities, including eating Grandma’s wonderful food, Yuki must leave. Grandma, sensing her granddaughter’s trepidation, offers her pet dog, cat and bird as company on the fog-bound trip. After going a short distance, though, Yuki sends them back, concerned about her grandmother’s own loneliness. All ends well, and Yuki has plenty of adventures to recount to her mom. Readers will come away with some idea of Japanese customs, though with no vocabulary. Illustrations are cheerful, bold and bright, but some features, such as skin tones, may raise concerns. Yuki, particularly, is rendered in a shade more appropriate to people of West Indian or Southeast-Asian heritage. Characters’ eyes are only vaguely Asian. Overall, though, this is a sweet story about the loving bond between a young girl and her grandmother. (Picture book. 4-7)