A beautiful and long-overdue picture-book homage to the importance of ancestors in Afro-Caribbean cultures.
A magic shell helps a Black Caribbean immigrant child connect with her ancestors.
Pigeon Pea, a young girl with medium-brown skin and an Afro, watches her parents and aunts (cued as a lesbian couple) preparing roti and callaloo (Caribbean culinary staples) and asks big questions: Who were their ancestors, and what would they say if they were still with them? Aunty bestows her with a magical cowrie shell that “carries the story of our people across sea and distant lands.” The shell’s magic transports Pigeon Pea through time and space, first to Tobago, where she meets her African foremothers and Kalinago forebears and participates in their community rituals, and then to West Africa, where she learns the songs and dances of her ancestral kinfolk, meets the “spirit guides” of her family, and is counseled by Yemoja, the mother of all Orishas, who assures her that “we are always rooting for you! We are with you wherever you are.” Pigeon Pea returns from her journey eager to tell her contemporary family about her enlightening adventure. The final illustration is a perfect ending: Pigeon Pea’s happy family enjoys a meal surrounded by the smiling spirits of their ancestors. Familial love and the joy of self-discovery are affirmed in Christmas’ uplifting narrative. The questionable choice of rhyming text and a lack of perspective in Mungaray’s colorful animation-esque art don’t spoil this special and important story. All characters are Black or Indigenous.
A beautiful and long-overdue picture-book homage to the importance of ancestors in Afro-Caribbean cultures. (glossary) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-9991562-4-4
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Flamingo Rampant
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre.
Ice princess Lina must navigate family and school in this early chapter read.
The family picnic is today. This is not a typical gathering, since Lina’s maternal relatives are a royal family of Windtamers who have power over the weather and live in castles floating on clouds. Lina herself is mixed race, with black hair and a tan complexion like her Asian-presenting mother’s; her Groundling father appears to be a white human. While making a grand entrance at the castle of her grandfather, the North Wind, she fails to successfully ride a gust of wind and crashes in front of her entire family. This prompts her stern grandfather to ask that Lina move in with him so he can teach her to control her powers. Desperate to avoid this, Lina and her friend Claudia, who is black, get Lina accepted at the Hilltop Science and Arts Academy. Lina’s parents allow her to go as long as she does lessons with grandpa on Saturdays. However, fitting in at a Groundling school is rough, especially when your powers start freak winter storms! With the story unfurling in diary format, bright-pink–highlighted grayscale illustrations help move the plot along. There are slight gaps in the storytelling and the pacing is occasionally uneven, but Lina is full of spunk and promotes self-acceptance.
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-35393-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
First of a tasty if not immediately nourishing new series.
When Dr. Bunsen, Gabe, Laura, and Cesar's mad-scientist neighbor, tries out his growth machine on Gabe's plastic animal toys, there's an unexpected result—they come to life.
Second-grade whiz kids Gabriel Martinez, Laura Reyes, and Cesar Moreno meet their strange neighbor while fundraising for a science-club field trip. Known to their classmates as “the Data Set,” they each have individual passions: Gabe loves animals; Laura loves to tinker and invent; Cesar loves to read and eat. There’s room for all these activities in their well-equipped treehouse. Together, their fantastic adventures will be the stuff of four titles scheduled for 2016 and aimed directly at first- and second-graders already devouring books. This episode introduces the characters, sets up the problem (the cute but rapidly growing baby animals), and finds a solution (sneak them into the zoo) in 126 fast-paced pages written with plenty of dialogue and copiously illustrated with appealing drawings. With these Latino protagonists—Cesar has dark skin and curly hair, while Laura and Gabe have lighter skin and straight hair—and a STEM-infused plot, this would seem to have been made to order for today’s elementary school students. While the emphasis is far more on plot than STEM, the kid-friendly fantasy should captivate readers, who will certainly want to gobble up the next installment. (Tantalizingly, the opening pages are included.)
First of a tasty if not immediately nourishing new series. (Adventure. 5-8)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5729-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
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