A resonating, inspiring story that encourages creative resilience and strength.
After a shattering racist incident, a Hmong American girl defines her own sense of home.
A vicious message scrawled on the mailbox, “ASIANS GO HOME,” understandably upends Nou’s sense of safety. She watches her mother’s failed attempts to wash off the angry words; her father then covers the letters with white paint. Nou longs to go to “a place where people want us,” but Dad quietly reminds her that “America is your home.” Their people, the Hmong, “have no country,” Nou knows. Dad finds home in his songs, Mom in her garden, big sister Houa in her Fourth of July soccer tournament and in Hmong New Year, and Pog Pog (Grandmother) in the traditional story cloths she sews. Microaggressions at school further alienate Nou: “The words people say weigh me down,” particularly the “Eeewww. Gross” reaction to the delicious zaub nyoj she brings in for lunch. Her own search for home takes shape on the page, “a place where I am accepted.” In filling her notebooks, “little by little, I create a place where I belong.” Yang and Kim have reunited after collaborating on A Map Into the World (2019), the book visible on Nou and Houa’s nightstand. Kim’s zoomed-above perspectives for numerous spreads are clever reminders to take a wider view beyond difficulties. Her artful adaptations of the “fantastical things” Nou depicts in her notebook release wondrous swirls of healing energy. Nou’s community is diverse.
A resonating, inspiring story that encourages creative resilience and strength. (author’s and illustrator’s notes, glossary with pronunciation guidance) (Picture book. 5-10)Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9798765619858
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Carolrhoda
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books.
Curious about the Big Wide World outside his Sasquatch community, Hugo makes a friend who is of it.
Sasquatch Hugo’s bedroom is inside a cave and possesses the charming feature of a small stream running through it that he can sail his little toy boat on. It’s cool, but he yearns to see the Big Wide World. When he asks his smart friend Gigi if a Sasquatch might become a sailor, she says it’s possible but would be difficult—the primary rule of their people is to not be seen by Humans. Then, in everyone’s favorite Hide and Go Sneak class, which is held outside, a Human appears; Hugo laughs at the sight, drawing Human attention in a taboo-breaking mistake. Shortly after, Hugo’s toy boat floats into the cave with a Human toy—soon, it’s facilitating a pen-pal–type relationship that’s derailed when Hugo confesses to being a Sasquatch and Human Boone, a budding cryptozoologist, doesn’t believe him. How Hugo and Boone resolve this misapprehension and become friends in a joint search for the Ogopogo concludes this series opener. Potter keeps the third-person narrative tightly focused on Hugo’s perspective, and the details she uses to flesh out the Sasquatch world are delightfully playful. Sala’s drawings depict a homey Sasquatch cavern community, Boone as a freckled, white boy, and Hugo as a hairily benevolent behemoth.
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books. (final art unseen) (Fantasy. 5-9)Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2859-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
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