Review by New York Times Review
THE GREAT NOVELS for young readers all explore the same question: How do we respond to an unfair world? For the picture book crowd, unfairness and injustice can be tough topics for discussion, but as three new books show, even the very young understand disappointment. In Matt de la Peña and Christian Robinson's "Last Stop on Market Street," a young boy named CJ leaves church with his grandmother and takes a bus ride. CJ's disappointments form a believable litany: It's raining, and he's getting wet. They have to ride the bus because they don't have a car. He wants to be playing with his friends. He wishes he owned a device for listening to music. One by one, Nana addresses CJ's dissatisfactions, neither ignoring nor indulging him. "Trees get thirsty, too," she says. And: "Boy, what do we need a car for? We got a bus that breathes fire." She occasionally gives more information than feels natural; at other times she answers him tartly, making her sound very real. While Nana's responses might not always satisfy CJ, he begins to discern her ability to turn limitation into opportunity, and even beauty. Still, after an important scene in which he finds a way to emulate Nana, he reverts momentarily, expressing yet another letdown when they get off the bus in a neighborhood that looks "dirty." Nana once again redirects his attention. Clearly it's a lesson most of us have to keep relearning all our lives. Robinson's simple shapes, bright palette and flat perspective belie a sophisticated use of acrylic and collage. His cityscape is diverse and friendly, without neglecting the grittiness: litter, graffiti, security grilles and a soup kitchen - CJ and Nana's destination. With this final detail, "Last Stop on Market Street" provides a gentle twist, letting readers in on the secret Nana and CJ have known all along: They're on the way to help others who have even less. But it's also the warmth of their intergenerational relationship that will make this book so satisfying, for both young readers and the adults sharing it with them. "Juna's Jar," written by Jane Bahk and illustrated by Felicia Hoshino, depicts a single disappointment big enough to be heartbreaking: Little Juna's friend Hector moves away suddenly, and she is denied even a chance to say goodbye. The two friends loved collecting things to keep in a kimchi jar that Juna salvaged after her family emptied the contents. The jar serves as a conduit for Juna's attempts to find Hector in her imagination and her dreams. Her brother, Minho, buys her a fish to keep in the jar. She "put on a diving mask and fins and dove into the water. . . . 'Can you help me find my friend Hector?' Juna asked her fish." The magic realism is underscored when, overnight, the fish grows too big for the jar. Subsequently Minho helps Juna put a seed and then a cricket into the jar, both of which take her on similar journeys to search for Hector. (Minho plays an important role in the story, though the lack of response from Juna to his kindness makes him a less dimensional character than he might have been.) Juna's eventual reunion with Hector occurs only in her dreams, realistically wistful rather than joyous. And while the ending, with its suggestion of a new friend for Juna, may be predictable for adult readers, young children will probably find it pleasing. In Hoshino's lyrical and delicately detailed watercolor illustrations, Juna is adorable, her facial expressions matching the honest emotion of the text. The role played by the book's title object is compelling as well, and you might want to prepare for a first reading to a child by having ajar of similar size and shape on hand. Both Juna and CJ hark back to Peter in Ezra Jack Keats's "The Snowy Day," in that their ethnicity is part of their identity without being the story's central issue (CJ is African-American, Juna is Korean-American). More than 50 years after Keats's book, such characters remain alarmingly rare in children's literature, even though the argument that books featuring nonwhite characters don't sell well has been thoroughly trounced by savvy marketing in other entertainment realms (think of Dora the Explorer, or Doc McStuffins). It is bewildering that so many publishers are taking so long to catch on. If Juna and CJ reside within more or less traditional picture book worlds, another disappointed child, the unnamed boy protagonist in David Mackintosh's "Lucky," lives in a postmodern one. Text is used as a design element - stacked, layered, squeezed, slanted. The large-headed, spindly-legged children proceed through a landscape of sketches, photographs, postcards, blocks of color and collage, with enough logic and white space to keep things from feeling too frantic. "Lucky" achieves a synchronicity between text and illustration that rarely occurs unless both are created by the same person. When the boy's mother announces in the morning that there will be a surprise for dinner, he and his brother, Leo, spend the day considering and rejecting possibilities. Leo begins by guessing that it might be curly fries. From there things escalate, to great comic effect. A new bike? A new car? "MAYBE WE'RE GETTING A SWIMMING POOL in the backyard." In each case, hope is quashed by reason: "But we live in a high apartment and don't have a backyard. So that can't be it." Throughout the school day, the boys continue to speculate, finally concluding that the family must have won a two-week vacation in Hawaii. Dazzled, the boy tells a classmate. The news disseminates at school and even reaches the principal, who is suitably impressed. Young readers will have no trouble getting in on the joke, and the book's siblings are the only ones who will be shocked to learn that, alas, they are not destined for Hawaii. Not only is the boy disappointed, he also feels like a fool - complex emotions captured neatly with a few lines of text and a sketch of his face that barely makes it onto the page. So why is he lucky? Maybe it's because he has a brother who is also his best friend. And in a true-to-life ending, even that blessing is not totally unalloyed: They still have to share a room. Picture books like these three lead by example rather than by preaching, using story to help prepare young readers for the more complex novels that await them - and for a world sorely in need of those who can respond to disappointment with grace. Maybe Leo IS right: We ARE going to Hawaii for two weeks! LINDA SUE PARK is the author of several picture books and novels for young readers, including "A Long Walk to Water." She serves on the advisory board of We Need Diverse Books.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [January 18, 2015]
Review by Booklist Review
Losing a best friend is never easy, especially when there isn't a chance to say good-bye. Juna and Hector use her empty kimchi jars to collect rocks and bugs, but when Hector suddenly moves far away, Juna's jar seems especially bare. Her brother tries to help by getting her a fish to keep in the jar, and then, that night, Juna dreams of diving into the ocean and searching for Hector. The next night, a similar dream, set in a rain forest, involves Juna's brother giving her a bean plant to fill the jar. On the third night, they put a cricket in the jar, and Juna dreams of riding it out of the city and onto Hector's windowsill. Seeing him sleeping soundly reassures Juna and helps her open up to making a new friend. The story's fantastical qualities are charmingly conveyed by the expressive pastel-watercolor illustrations. Bahk's comforting picture-book debut, effortlessly multicultural, sparkles with the promise of imagination and friendship.--Mazza, April Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A girl named Juna gets significant mileage-in more ways than one-out of an empty jar of kimchi in Bahk's debut, which won the publisher's New Voices Award. Juna is distraught after her friend Hector moves away suddenly; to cheer her up, her brother gets her a small fish, which she keeps in her jar. At night, "when everyone else was asleep," Juna joins the fish on an imaginary underwater journey, and in the morning, "Juna's fish had grown so big its mouth nearly touched its tail." This surprising development sets the state for subsequent "was it really just a dream?" adventures, which eventually let Juna make peace with Hector's absence. Hoshino (Sora and the Cloud) contributes warm watercolors, dominated by pale yellows and greens, that bring Juna's nighttime sojourns to full life-in the final one, she dons aviator goggles and flies over a bustling city on the back of a cricket. Despite the elements of magical realism interwoven with the plot, Bahk never loses sight of the very real emotions that drive her pensive, curious, and openhearted heroine. Ages 5-9. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-Charming soft watercolor illustrations and a sweet story that tugs at the imagination provide a flight of fancy that youngsters will enjoy hearing again and again. Little Juna and her friend Hector share adventures in the park across the street from their apartment building in Koreatown. Interesting critters and other items go into Juna's empty kimchi jar to be studied, then released. When Hector moves away, Juna's older brother, Minho, observing her sadness, buys her a small fish, gives her a small bean plant grown at school, then helps her find twigs and leaves in the park to provide a habitat for a cricket. Each night, the kimchi jar takes Juna on a fabulous journey. The goldfish takes her on an undersea adventure, growing so large that it must be transferred to the family aquarium. The bean plant transports her to a tropical rainforest, then is moved to a large pot on the balcony; the cricket carries Juna over city buildings to the window of Hector's bedroom, where his stone-filled kimchi jar sits on a windowsill near his bed. Seeing Hector safe and happy allows Juna to move on and make a new friend at the park. Hoshino's delightful detail-filled paintings of Juna's nighttime adventures show smiling sea creatures, sloths, monkeys and crocodiles, and a city alive with activity, illuminated by vehicle headlights "that lit up the hill like a string of holiday lights." Use this title inpreschool storytimes or in the classroom to stimulate leaps of imagination.-Susan Scheps, formerly at Shaker Public Library, OH (c) Copyright 2014. 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
When her friend Hector moves away abruptly, Juna's kind brother tries to divert her sadness with gifts to put in her special kimchi jar. A fish, plant, and cricket inspire nightly dreamlike adventures to find Hector, but a daytime encounter with a new friend sets her on a happy path. Soft, whimsical watercolors contrast Juna's ordinary days and exciting nights. (c) Copyright 2015. 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 seemingly ordinary kimchi jar is anything but in this gentle tale of old friends and new. Best friends Juna and Hector collect rocks and bugs in her family's empty kimchi jars. One day, Juna goes to Hector's apartment only to learn from his abuela that his parents came and took him to live with them far away. To cheer her up, Juna's brother buys her a fish to place in the empty kimchi jar. That night, she dreams of questing underwater for Hector, only to awaken to find her pet has, remarkably, grown too big for its home. She turns the now-empty jar into a terrarium with a small bean plant, and that night she imagines she is looking for Hector through a rain forest. This pattern is repeated again with a cricket, and then finally Juna is able to come to terms with Hector's absence and is emotionally ready to make another friend. The steady narrative repetition as Juna sleeps and seeks offers a reassuring pattern for children who might be missing their own Hectors. The logic (or magic) behind the jar's occupants' phenomenal growth is unclear, and Juna's brother never remarks on its impossibility; less-credulous readers will wonder about this. Meanwhile, the muted tones of Hoshino's watercolors soothe and, on occasion, amuse, as when readers witness the slightly smooshed lips of Juna enduring a hug she did not seek. While a little logically shaky, this fills a need for those children who find themselves adrift when their closest friends seemingly disappear. (Picture book. 4-7) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
