  | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 05/15/2014 Tears, rain, puddles: water keeps Eva Alemitu connected to Emaye, the mother she left behind in Ethiopia, as Eva adjusts to her new life in the U.S. In this hauntingly bittersweet tale, inspired partly by the author’s own life, Ieronimo imagines the heartbreak of a mother and daughter forced apart by hunger and poverty. The result is bleakly realistic, and readers will be drawn to Eva’s conflicting feelings of longing for her biological mother, and security with her adoptive family in America. Velasquez’s light-infused illustrations capture the quiet dignity of Emaye’s grief and Eva’s tentative acceptance, and perfectly complement the tender tone of the text. Perceptive readers will be too moved to be satisfied with the happy conclusion and will appreciate the story for its complexity rather than its plot. This book can be read as one of a growing number of immigration stories. An author’s note provides context and prompts for kids to take action. - Copyright 2014 Booklist. Bulletin for the Center... - 09/01/2014 Alemitu lives with her mother in a small Ethiopian village, and her days are filled with heat, hunger, and treks to the watering hole, where she gazes into the cool pool and imagines “a secret passage that connected to a place” she had never been. As food becomes more and more scarce, Alemitu’s mother makes the decision to give up her daughter for adoption, and soon Alemitu, now Eva, is living with a middle-class American family on the other side of the world. One morning, Eva is gazing into an enormous puddle at her new family’s home and realizes that she is on the other side of the watering hole. In that moment, she sees her mother smiling in the water’s surface: “The water has connected my two worlds, and I know who I am.” Though it’s oversimplified and idealized, this story, based on the author’s own experience of adopting a child from Ethiopia, provides an opportunity for addressing themes of poverty and resource inequity with a very young audience. The perspective is spot-on, and the presentation of Alemitu’s culture shock is realistically detailed. Velasquez’s lush full-bleed oil compositions offer photorealistic portraits of the story’s characters. The visual shift from Ethiopia to the United States is appropriately startling, as the rich oranges and browns of the African landscape are replaced with puffy clouds, green grass, and a vinyl-sided house. While this by no means offers a complete picture of the complexities of leaving one’s home and family to start a new life, it certainly raises some important talking points for young listeners as well as some thoughtful reminders to appreciate easy access to food and water. An author’s note provides further information about Ethiopia and several websites for information on water issues around the world. HM - Copyright 2014 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Loading...
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