A needed but uneven addition to diverse family stories, best for children whose caregivers are ready for questions.
A little girl growing up with extended family cherishes a visit with her mother.
Ally, illustrated as a child of color with brown skin and dark, curly hair, is being raised by her grandmother and great-aunt (who both appear white with light skin and blue eyes) “far, far away from her mom.” Ally also visits her white-appearing aunt and uncle every summer, and her aunt answers many questions about her mother by drawing on childhood memories of their growing-up years. The text never explains why this arrangement is so, not even when Ally’s mother visits while she’s with her aunt and uncle. Both the words and multimedia pictures excel, however, at honoring the special time mother and daughter share. She, like Ally, has brown skin and dark curly hair, and they also both love to “swim like a pair of seals.” Unfortunately, the unanswered questions about why Ally lives apart from her mother and why she can’t go with her when she ends the visit may prove difficult for some readers. An author’s note alludes to the author’s adopted sister, who “had many struggles in her life,” which led her to agree to have her adoptive mother raise her own daughter, but this backmatter content doesn’t go quite far enough to fill in the gaps in this fictionalized story.
A needed but uneven addition to diverse family stories, best for children whose caregivers are ready for questions. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4598-1321-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A poignant tale that voices the hopes and heartaches of many diasporic Palestinians.
A child forges a connection to a far-off homeland.
Looking through an old photo album, the young protagonist gazes at an image of the family’s home in Palestine. Though the child has never been there, “I can taste its sweetness in my Jiddo’s rows of green.” Jiddo (Grandfather) grows sour plums, plump tomatoes, and crunchy cucumbers, as well as figs from a tree he raised—his favorite taste of home. Jiddo’s father taught him to grow food and care for the land—a tradition that goes back generations. Like many other Palestinian families, Jiddo and his loved ones were forced to leave their home. “Our land was taken from us,” he says. “Our family had to flee.” But Palestine stays rooted in his heart, and as the family tends to the garden, Jiddo nurses the dream that one day they’ll return. Expressed in simple, child-friendly prose, the story explores themes of belonging, forced displacement, and the deep connection that many Palestinians have to the land and to the food they grow on it. Ghanameh’s verdant illustrations feature expressive characters and traditional Palestinian symbols of hope and solidarity such as strawberries, watermelon, and keys. In an author’s note, Matari explains that her book was inspired by her own grandfather, who in 1948 was expelled during the Nakba and eventually relocated to Jordan.
A poignant tale that voices the hopes and heartaches of many diasporic Palestinians. (glossary, author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2025
ISBN: 9781623716110
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Crocodile/Interlink
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
A solid, small step for diversifying STEM stories.
What does Annie want to be?
As career day approaches, Annie wants to keep her job choice secret until her family sees her presentation at school. Readers will figure it out, however, through the title and clues Tadgell incorporates into the illustrations. Family members make guesses about her ambitions that are tied to their own passions, although her brother watches as she completes her costume in a bedroom with a Mae Jemison poster, starry décor, and a telescope. There’s a celebratory mood at the culminating presentation, where Annie says she wants to “soar high through the air” like her basketball-playing mother, “explore faraway places” like her hiker dad, and “be brave and bold” like her baker grandmother (this feels forced, but oven mitts are part of her astronaut costume) so “the whole world will hear my exciting stories” like her reporter grandfather. Annie jumps off a chair to “BLAST OFF” in a small illustration superimposed on a larger picture depicting her floating in space with a reddish ground below. It’s unclear if Annie imagines this scene or if it’s her future-self exploring Mars, but either scenario fits the aspirational story. Backmatter provides further reading suggestions and information about the moon and four women astronauts, one of whom is Jemison. Annie and her family are all black.
A solid, small step for diversifying STEM stories. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-88448-523-0
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Tilbury House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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