Editorial Reviews
From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 2-When a young girl cuts her knee at school, she is bandaged and sent home by the nurse. As she walks, she engages in imaginary conversations with the animals, plants, and rocks she encounters. As she nears her house, it begins to rain, and after being comforted by her mother, the child watches nature recover from the downpour. Everything is the same as before, though not quite. Each of Hogrogian’s watercolor-and-pencil illustrations spreads over a page-and-a-third, while text and a line drawing fill the remaining white space. The last illustration is centered, depicting the young narrator, triumphant after her solo journey, as the center of her universe. The soft, pastel paintings capture the quiet mood of the story. While Kherdian’s talent as a poet comes through in some interesting imagery, his message-that the little girl, too, is the same but different after completing her first trip home from school on her own-is couched in a long and sometimes confusing text: “I feel a drop of rain on my cheek./Soon it is talking to the ground,/and the ground is going everywhere at once,/unable to stop itself.” Adults may object to the fact that the nurse allows the girl to go home alone without even calling her mother first. Children are eager to read about the successes of their peers, but there are more engaging books on the subject.
Marianne Saccardi, Whitby School American Montessori Center, Greenwich, CT
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
