Review by Booklist Review
K^-Gr. 2. In this handsome picture book about an Asian immigrant family, a Korean American writer and a Filipino French artist use the metaphor of a seed that needs a safe place to grow. As a small girl works with her dad in the sunny garden of their comfortable home, he talks about how seeds travel, and the pictures move back and forth between the seeds they are planting now and the faraway places he left, where there were "too many guns and not enough love . . . too many workers and not enough work." The simple words are poetic, and the garden image makes universal connections while it leaves space for individual families to fill in their own particular journeys. The trouble is, there's too much space. The places are generic: Where exactly is this? Somewhere in Asia? What happened? When? To quote Isaac Bashevis Singer, the story needs an "address." Fortunately, the pictures are somewhat more specific--clear, beautiful double-page spreads that show the troubled streets left behind as well as the family now safe at home. --Hazel Rochman
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Like a 17th-century poem, this high-toned story about why a family chooses to move to another country rests on a single, extended metaphor. Unfortunately, the book ultimately sinks under the weight of its poetic abstractions. Pak (Dear Juno) introduces the book's theme when the girl narrator says that her father, like a springtime seed, "flew a long way to grow into our family." Truong alternates warm renderings of the girl and her father planting a lush garden in their new homeland with illustrations of the hardships endured in the Asian country from which he emigrated. The repeated and often forced analogy between seeds and people carries political freight beyond the knowledge of most children (the father tells the girl a seed needs rain to grow, but "the rain that fell on our seed came only now and then,/ and sometimes not at all./.../ That is what it is like when there are too many workers/ and not enough work"). The leap from rainfall to unemployment, or from a seed/person needing "good land," but not "too many guns and not enough love" may be asking too much of some readers. The book ends on a cozy, if didactic note, as the father remembers his father saying, "There will always be a garden in my heart for you." While the book's heartfelt sentiments may appeal to some, its preachy tone and strained images will likely confuse young readers. Ages 4-10. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 4-As in Dear Juno (Viking, 1999), the author presents themes of emotional endurance and strong family bonds. A Korean girl's father compares a family to a seed, explaining that they both need a safe place to grow. They have found such a home after her father's journey through places with "too many guns and not enough love," "dreams but not enough hope," and "too many workers and not enough work." The lyrical text is enhanced by the double-page, folk-art paintings. Effective use of line, color, and light emphasize the contrast between the urban settings the family has left and their new rural home. The desperate, emotionally barren areas are dominated by grays, browns, and sharp lines. Scenes of the girl and her father in their garden are filled with fluid lines and bright rich colors that "sprout like swelling balloons." The love between the father and daughter is obvious. Unfortunately, this book will have limited child appeal. Most youngsters will be confused by the metaphor and symbolism of the seed and garden; those who are mature enough to understand the literary device and appreciate the message may be put off by the art, which appears to be for a young audience. This special book will need adult introduction and explanation.-Heide Piehler, Shorewood Public Library, WI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Preschool, Primary) A little girl and her father are making a new garden, which he presents as a metaphor for their own life: like a seed blown by the wind, they had to fly far over the earth to find a safe place to ""grow into our family."" Not just any land will do for a garden, he says, or for a life. Rocky ground is like a place with ""too many guns and not enough love""; heavy shade like ""when there are dreams but not enough hope""; and a withering drought like ""too many workers and not enough work."" In Truong's handsome gouache and ink illustrations, scenes of the emerging garden, in a venerable European village rendered in a sunny Impressionist palette, alternate with those in somber hues depicting the family's earlier journey, their figures angular with determination. Despite the seriousness of the theme, both the lyrical tone of the language and the interaction between parent and child are gentle and reassuring. ""Even if I fly across the tallest mountains...there will always be a garden in his heart for me."" Endpapers depict author Pak and illustrator Truong in childhood and map their respective immigrant journeys from Korea to the U.S. and from Vietnam to England. Their compact exposition of the stresses that so often propel immigrants from their homelands offers much to discuss. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A simple story can sometimes grow into many compound emotions, like the delicate complexity of a flower. And in the hands of both an author and an illustrator with an Eastern orientation, subtle exchanges bloom into explanations of family, current events, and the natural world, enriching perceptive young readers who would spend the time to pore over the integral pictures and text. Ezra Jack Keats Award-winner Pak (Dear Juno, 1999) recounts the growth of a conversation between a father and daughter who have emigrated to the West to find their own quiet patch of earth, escaping the turmoil of their native country. The father's belief in the good reasons to uproot-or more aptly, transplant-his family are as reassuring as the seasons and the weather. Sometimes, he says, a seed must travel far to find good soil, good sun, and good rain. And there is another garden in the heart. Newcomer Truong uses bold, solid renderings in China Ink and gouache to reinforce the solidity of the family's survival intact. He uses a bright, varied, and happy palette in the gardens of the new country, along with startling angles and perspectives. The old country he renders darkly and more monochromatically while more in profile. There is no terror, repression, or violence depicted, because we know it is there. The simple, excellent design melds both image and text to bring a rich harvest on many different levels, like a Koan or haiku. World migration is becoming more of an issue; family survival always has been; and children's worldliness today requires sophisticated metaphors to assuage anxieties. Perhaps in a small way here is a large contribution. (Picture book. 4-10)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
