Review by New York Times Review
THREE new biographical picture books portray children living through challenging circumstances; growing up in East Texas during the Depression, building a new life in the Bronx in the 1960s after escaping from Castro's Cuba, and hiding from the Nazis in the Italian countryside during World War II. Perhaps they'll teach children today that even the greatest difficulties can be overcome through determination, optimism and familial love. At the very least, they'll provide an excellent moral lesson: If your biggest problem is not having the latest Webkinz, things could be a lot worse. "Born and Bred in the Great Depression," Jonah Winter's love letter to his father, is the most poetic of the three. Kimberly Bulcken Root's first spread sets the tone: a train steams through a nighttime landscape, rendered in a wash of indigo, slate and midnight blue. There's a rundown shack, an outhouse, a vast skyful of stars. Winter addresses his father: Where you grew up, on the edge of town, next to the tracks, you could hear the trains going by at night. The book manages to be melancholy without being sad. Despite the family's lack of money, Dad, the youngest of eight, is never hungry - not with the chickens and the vegetable plot and the canning skills of Granny Winter, who offers mashed-bean sandwiches to hobos with even less than her family has. Grandpa Winter keeps his dignity as he competes for the right to spread tar on railroad ties in the hot sun for 10 cents an hour. Years later, Winter writes: When I think of the Great Depression, I picture a whole country of people tough as Grandpa and Granny Winter, not giving up, even when it seemed like there was nothing left to lose - waiting out a storm that seemed like it would never end and then finally waking to the blue skies of better days. Winter is a prolific author of children's nonfiction - he's written picture books about Gertrude Stein, Gilbert and Sullivan, and the renegade Long Island garbage barge. But "Born and Bred in the Great Depression" is the first of his books I've found deeply engaging on an emotional level. Root's old-fashioned pencil, ink and watercolor illustrations - sometimes a bit stilted and awkward-looking - work well with the text. The endpapers feature vintage photos of Winter's family. Where Winter's tone is lyrical, Edie Colón's, in "Good-bye, Havana! Hola, New York!" is matter-of-fact: As Fidel Castro gains power in Cuba, 6-year-old Gabriella, a fictionalized character based on Colón's own experiences, learns that the government has closed her grandparents' restaurant. She overhears her grandfather, Abito, saying that Castro has the power to take away people's freedom. So Mami and Papi and Gabriella move to the Bronx, hoping Abito and Abuelita will be able to join them. Colón teaches English as a second language; it shows in the way she structures the dialogue. As if to emphasize Gabriella's dislocation, early conversations in the book are rendered first in Spanish, then in English: "Gabriella, hay muchos problemas en Cuba. Gabriella, there are many problems in Cuba." But it tends to feel a little forced. The art, however, is a grand slam. Raúl Colón, the author's husband, has done everything from New Yorker covers to murals in the New York City subway system to children's books (including a biography of Roberto Clemente written by Jonah Winter). He uses layers of paint and lithograph pencil on textured watercolor paper to create lush, soft, almost pointillist pictures, then creates still more texture by etching in wavy lines. Gabriella has a lovely, sincere face - I could feel Raúl Colón's love for his wife coming through the pages. "I Will Come Back for You," by Marisabina Russo ("A Very Big Bunny"), is the most exciting of the three books but also the scariest. Our narrator's grandmother, Nonna, decides the time has come to tell her granddaughter the story of her charm bracelet; the donkey, the piano, the bicycle, the piglet, the barn, the spinning wheel and the ship. Charm by charm, Nonna tells of her girlhood in an upper-class Jewish family in Italy. As the Nazis gain power, the family's fortunes change. Luckily, righteous gentiles help them again and again: the Silvestri brothers help Mamma escape from a policeman (on a bicycle - hence the bicycle charm), and Signor Brunelli hides Nonna and her brother in market baskets with piglets on their heads (the piglet charm). After the war, Mamma learns that Papà has been killed. Strangers now occupy their apartment in Rome. They set out for America (hence the ocean liner). The pleasingly flat, bright, folk-arty paintings should appeal to young readers, and again, the endpapers show real family photos. An informative afterword clarifies Russo's family story and gives a bit more historical background without delving into too terrifying detail. Indeed, each of these books makes frightening times informative yet manageable for a young audience. And they'll please parents who want to teach children that life isn't all Skittles and PlayStations. Marjorie Ingall is the parenting columnist for Tablet magazine.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [November 13, 2011]
Review by Booklist Review
Drawing on Russo's family history, this moving picture book tells a story of sorrow, fear, courage, and kindness during WWII. Nonna shares her memories with her grandchild about growing up in a happy Jewish family in Rome until things changed for the Jews in Italy, and Papa was sent to the mountains. At first, the family could visit him on weekends. Then, after the Germans sent him to a concentration camp, Papa ran away. Soldiers came to arrest Mama, but her neighbors helped her hide and cared for the children. With lots of sepia family photographs on the endpapers, an afterword fills in the facts, and the bright, clear, gouache illustrations on watercolor paper stay true to the child's viewpoint confused and sad about the separation and secrets, until there is a joyful reunion with Mama. The children never saw Papa again, though, and a closing page without pictures, just text against a black background, has a powerful effect. A fine addition to the Holocaust curriculum.--Rochman, Hazel Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Why does Nonna have such curious charms on her bracelet-and why does she never take the bracelet off? The story takes her granddaughter and readers back to Rome during WWII, when Nonna and her family, along with other Jews, were caught in the ever-tightening grip of the Nazis. Each of the seven charms represents moments of hope and horror: a donkey reminds Nonna of the cart that took her, her brother, and her mother to visit Papa after he was detained; the tiny pig prompts the telling of how Nonna and her brother, separated from their mother for weeks, hid in baskets of real piglets while escaping into the mountains to be reunited with her. As she did with Always Remember Me: How One Family Survived World War II (2005), Russo bases this book on her own family history. Her writing is direct but always reassuring, and her naif gauche illustrations, rendered in saturated autumnal tones, feel very close to the actual family photographs that serve as the book's endpapers. Ingenuity and compassion are recurring themes in this eloquent portrayal of a family's struggle for freedom. Ages 5-9. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-4-Russo tells a simplified version of her Jewish family's World War II experiences in Italy. A modern framing story provides comforting distance, and the tale of family separation, hiding, and a father's (offstage) death is told with great sensitivity. The warm gouache paintings make the family's affection clear and emphasize the positive moments they are able to snatch during this terrible time. Period photographs of Russo's family decorate the endpapers. This is a fictionalized memoir from the point of view of an individual child; it bears witness to but does not teach history or expound on major themes or lessons of the Holocaust. While it is well written and beautifully illustrated, it joins a crowded field of Holocaust testimony and stands out only for the extreme gentleness of its style. Its picture-book format and sweet illustrations may make it a difficult sell for older readers who are ready to learn about this harsh history, while its content may raise troubling questions among younger readers for whom its format is most appropriate. A title such as this should be used judiciously, with adult guidance.-Heidi Estrin, Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel, Boca Raton, FL (c) Copyright 2011. 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
In this companion volume to Always Remember Me: How One Family Survived World War II (rev. 3/05), Russo tells a story based on her Jewish mother's experiences in Italy during World War II. A young girl lives happily in Rome with her little brother and emigre Jewish parents until Italy joins forces with Nazi Germany and life becomes perilous for Jews. First Papa and then Mamma go into hiding to escape being sent to concentration camps; the children are eventually reunited with Mamma, but they never see Papa again. The frame (a modern grandmother -- Nonna -- telling her granddaughter about her wartime childhood) is a little confusing, but the device of a charm bracelet that reminds Nonna of places and events helps connect the two eras, and readers will find themselves engrossed after a few pages. Russo has an ear for the vivid and child-friendly detail -- the disgusting concoction Mamma drinks in order to make her too ill for the Nazi transport; the baskets filled with piglets the children hide in to join her in the mountains. Saturated gouache paintings in the warm colors of a northern Italian village depict both the happiness of family togetherness and the tension and fear of wartime. Photos of the real Mamma (Russo's mother) and other members of her family adorn the endpapers, bringing the story even closer to child audiences. martha v. parravano (c) Copyright 2011. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A fictionalized Holocaust account that may make readers wonder why the author didn't trust her own story. Nonna, the grandmother who narrates this story, has tiny charms on her bracelet: a donkey, a piglet, a spinning wheel, a boat. Each item reminds her of her escape from Italy during World War II. She and her brother hid in a basket full of pigs, on its way to a farm in the country. They sailed on a boat to America. Some children will think the charm bracelet is exactly right, the perfect storybook image to sum up her escape. More skeptical children will say: Wait, did the person who made the bracelet have a spinning-wheel charm just sitting around? Or did someone ask him to make a spinning wheel, even though the wheel was just a small part of Nonna's story? Children who read all the way through the afterword will find out that there was no charm bracelet in real life, and, actually, Nonna was a boy. Russo has turned their story into a little fable, a small, snapshot version of the war. The real history is moving its own right and full of miraculous escapes, but it isn't a fable.Some readers will love the little miracle of the charm bracelet. Others will want the whole truth, even if it isn't a tidy story. (Picture book. 6-11)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
