Review by New York Times Review
PICTURE BOOKS HAVE long been concerned with helping children transition to an unfamiliar place. A child's first day in a new school or a family's move to a different neighborhood are by now classic subjects. But since the dawn of the 21st century, with the number of immigrants in the United States continuing to increase markedly, children's authors and publishers have begun to take on a far more challenging task - helping immigrant children settle into a new cultural environment, one that even their parents may find inexplicable. Since the principal obstacle to understanding a culture is, of course, the language that expresses it, language can loom large in these books; and a language divide is a concept difficult to express pictorially. Given all this, a child's experience of immigration is a subject matter that requires some inventive tactics, as four new books ably demonstrate. "Auntie used to call me Cartwheel. Then came the war," reads the opening of "My Two Blankets," written by Irena Kobald. "Auntie didn't call me Cartwheel anymore," the narrator continues. War and displacement have left a mark on Cartwheel, even to the point of losing her sense of self: "I felt like I wasn't me anymore." She speaks from her new country, and Freya Blackwood's illustrations underscore her disorientation. Small, mysterious shapes and objects representing the words of the language Cartwheel does not understand dart chaotically across the pages, and we see Cartwheel at night, hiding under an imagined "blanket" made of orderly symbols that represent her native tongue. One day in the park, a girl smiles at Cartwheel and soon begins helping her to decipher the meaning of the strange floating signs. Soon Cartwheel incorporates these symbols into her old "blanket," gradually creating an entirely new one as she steadily masters her new language. Finally, Cartwheel is comfortable "no matter which blanket I use" - she is able to speak both languages. A final page shows her cartwheeling in the park, her sense of self restored. With its bold visual metaphors, "My Two Blankets" ingeniously captures a child's efforts to weave the old with the new. THE CHILD PROTAGONIST of "Mama's Nightingale: A Story of Immigration and Separation," written by the accomplished novelist and memoirist Edwidge Danticat, deploys the inherent power of words to pull off the near impossible: a reunion with her mother, who is in Sunshine Correctional, "a prison for women without papers." A child of Haitian immigrants, Saya soothes her misery over the separation by listening to her mother's voice on the answering machine: "Tanpri kite bon ti nouvèl pou nou!" the family's outgoing message says in Creole, which the bilingual Saya, who narrates the story, translates as "Please, leave us good news." But no good news is forthcoming. Nightly, Saya's father writes letters to public officials pleading his wife's case, but "no one ever writes him back." After a heart-wrenching prison visit, Saya's mother manages to send audiocassettes with bedtime stories that she has recorded for her daughter. Inspired, Saya writes her own story about her mother's absence, and her father mails it to a newspaper reporter. When Saya's story is published, a public outcry results in Saya's mother's release. "I like that it is our words that brought us together again," Saya concludes. Skillfully written with Creole words sprinkled into the English, "Mama's Nightingale" is richly illuminated by Leslie Staub's oil paintings evoking Haitian folk art. IN ANNE SIBLEY O'BRIEN'S "I'm New Here," three simultaneous story lines show the efforts of immigrant children named Maria, Jin and Fatimah to fit into their new schools. Their common obstacle is the language they cannot understand. Readers are placed squarely into the characters' points of view from the first page, with the children's bewilderment expressed graphically through words emanating from invisible speakers in disembodied comics-style speech balloons, or through oddly spelled English words that the native children utter at recess: "Hedz Up," "Mai Tern," "Kum Awn." Eventually, our newcomers draw on their strengths - Maria excels at soccer, Jin makes comic books, Fatimah is a good artist - to overcome the language barrier and make friends. The stories are all quite simple, but Sibley's illustrations do a good job of conveying the wall of words a child immigrant must scale in order to fit in. THE CENTRAL CHARACTER of Michael Foreman's "The Seeds of Friendship" does not struggle with a new language, but his sense of displacement still seems overwhelming. In the opening pages we see it conveyed not through words but through gestures, as he peers from the top-floor window of a nondescript apartment building at the cold, gray urban world below. Nostalgic for the "faraway place where he used to live," Adam consoles himself with colorful drawings of animals. When the window glass is frosted over, Adam scratches animal shapes into its icy patterns. After a snow-fall, Adam observes local children building a snowman and attempts to replicate one of his nostalgic drawings by building a snow elephant. It is a lovely gesture, expressing Adam's desire to establish himself in his new environment without losing emotional ties to his native land. The neighborhood children join Adam, and "by supper time, the snowman was in charge of a whole snow zoo." Later we see the gray of Adam's world become gradually more colorful, page by page, as these same children create gardens at school, at home and even on the roof of Adam's gray apartment building. These books will inspire not just empathy for the struggles of childhood immigration, but admiration for their authors' and illustrators' ingenuity as well. With all they accomplish in conveying both inexpressible emotions and linguistic barriers, they also give us new insight into the central challenge of making books for young children: telling stories through pictures. EUGENE YELCHIN is the author and illustrator of many books for children, most recently the middle-grade novel "Arcady's Goal."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 23, 2015]
Review by Booklist Review
Auntie used to call me Cartwheel. Then came the war. The first spread shows a joyful little girl in her Sudanese village. In the next, she is huddled with her auntie and other commuters in a big-city train. Indeed, nothing is the same. Cartwheel doesn't speak English, so she feels like she is standing under a waterfall of strange sounds. Both text and art arrestingly describe how the girl wants to wrap herself in a blanket made of her own words and memories of her old world. Then one day a girl waves to her, and soon they are playing together, but words are still a problem, so it is up to the new friend to find a way they can communicate: origami figures. Slowly Cartwheel begins to feel words are softening their hard edges, and she makes a new blanket from them. The illustrations, a combination of watercolor and oils, heighten the effect of the thought-provoking story. Just the right format for children to think about immigrants and friendship.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 2-Following a war, Cartwheel and her aunt emigrate from their rural village to a westernized city. Under a barrage of foreign sights and sounds, Cartwheel finds comfort by wrapping herself in a "blanket" of familiar words and memories: "When I went out, it was like standing under a waterfall of strange sounds... It made me feel alone." One day at the park, a blonde girl waves to her. Feeling scared, Cartwheel doesn't respond. Eventually they connect, and the girl starts teaching Cartwheel words, but Cartwheel is very self-conscious: "Sometimes I felt silly and I wanted to cry." At home, she practices the words until they become soft and familiar, and she starts to create a new "blanket" that represents her new life. Eventually she finds balance between the two. The blanket metaphor is powerful, and the way that sounds are depicted through shape and line works well. Cartwheel and her home are shown in bright warm colors, while the new country is portrayed through cool colors. Although Cartwheel and her aunt are the only nonwhite characters, their foreignness is represented through the color palette rather than dress or customs; care is taken to show that the new city is full of people dressed strangely and doing strange things. Unfortunately, the friendship is one-sided; rather than sharing culture and language between them, the girl does all the teaching and guiding, and Cartwheel isn't shown as having anything to offer. VERDICT This visually powerful book may resonate with recent immigrants. A solid addition for libraries.-Anna Haase Krueger, Ramsey County Library, MN © Copyright 2016. 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 Australian import, Cartwheel and her auntie leave their war-torn home and immigrate to the safety of a new country. Evocative, motif- and metaphor-filled watercolor and oil illustrations visualize Cartwheel's difficult adjustment to a new language and landscape ("Even the wind felt strange"). An emerging (though oddly one-sided) friendship, which is compared to a comforting blanket, eases her transition. (c) Copyright 2016. 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 girl her auntie used to call Cartwheel must flee from a land of war to a place where they can be safe. She finds life there hard and cold, so she takes refuge in a metaphorical blanket of words and memories from her former life. In the park one day, another little girl smiles at her, then brings her to the swings. More than that, she brings her words, and Cartwheel says them to herself, again and again. The text is exquisitely simple, and the watercolor-and-oil images complement, expand, and illuminate the words with magic and delight. Cartwheel is always brown and orange and gold, as is the blanket she weaves in her imagination of the words and sounds of home. The other girl is blue and green and pink and pale yellow, and she brings new words to her friend in the shape of origami forms. As Cartwheel weaves those words into a second blanket of those colors and shapes, they unfold on the page in beauty. Loneliness, cultural displacement, tentative friendship, and an explosion of sharing and kindness are accessible even to very young readers. The final image of Cartwheel teaching her friend how do a cartwheel tugs at the heart with joy. An amazingly lovely import from Australia. (Picture book. 4-10) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
