A very determined young lady knows precisely what she wants to wear. Ella Sarah is in her jammies (with a pattern of white sheep on bright blue) and announcing that she wants to wear “my pink polka-dot pants, my dress with orange-and-green flowers, my purple-and-blue striped socks, my yellow shoes, and my red hat.” Mom, Dad, and big sister have other ideas for her attire, but Ella Sarah repeats her desired outfit emphatically at each suggestion. When readers see her friends gathered for a tea party, it’s clear that they all knew just what they wanted to wear—a riot of mismatched color and pattern. Chodos-Irvine uses printmaking for these fabulously patterned images, where wallpaper, rugs, and toys create wonderful rhythms. Ella Sarah’s body language, which goes from determined to dejected to defiant to dogmatic, contrasts with the posturing of her parents and sibling, seen from Ella Sarah’s point of view, heads cut off by the picture plane. A wonderfully realized artistic conceit with a storyline guaranteed to tickle the fancy of baby fashionistas and their families. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-15-216413-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2003
The ache of homesickness is shot through Heo's story of the travails that wait upon the emigrant's experience. Yungsu has just moved to America from Korea. The neighborhood is new, he hasn't any friends, and his father works the long hours of a grocer. Yungsu wants to go hometo Korea. Late one night his father comes to see him in bed. He tells Yungsu the story of a pair of rubber shoesconsidered the best shoes to ownYungsu's grandmother bought his father when he was young. He wanted to keep those shoes forever. ``I want to give you something,'' the father says, ``like my rubber shoes, but something you can have all the time. That's why we're here. I hope you understand.'' It's a quietly epiphanal moment for Yungsu, and his life takes a modest turn for the better. This story has an unpretentious grace about it: The pain is there but so is the peaceful, hopeful presence of Yungsu's mother and father. Heo's illustrations are elegantly, fiercely two- dimensionalprimitive, colorful, with all sorts of odd, surprising perspectives and colors: pumpkin orange, grape, olive green, khaki, dusty rose, and maroon on mustard backgrounds. Hope and promise join with longing in a heartfelt book. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-531-06873-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Ouellette-Howitz's first book has an original approach to a timeless parental problem: how to help children cope with the impending arrival of a new sibling. This is the enchanting story of Sophie, who climbs into her mother's lap one sleepless night, eager for answers about the new baby inhabiting Mama's ``room.'' ``It's a womb, not a room,'' her mother says, while Sophie drifts in and out of dreams. One is haunted by visions of relatives flocking around the new baby, with Sophie disappearing in the background, a pint-size nobody. ``Who will hold me after the baby comes?'' she asks. Reassuring words about her place in the family help her drift into peaceful slumber. Stock (Maggie Rugg Herold's A Very Important Day, p. 946) creates vibrant nighttime scenes, uniquely rendered in chalky pastels on a gray nubby background. Her blushing, rounded formsMama, in the last stages of pregnancy, looks like a ripe red plumsuit this loving lullaby perfectly, a story that will soothe and comfort children in Sophie's situation. (Picture book 3-6)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-531-09472-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995
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