  | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 04/01/2021 Using the metaphor of the hardy dandelion’s passage from seed to flower, the author traces her Cambodian family’s journey from a winter refugee camp in Thailand to their new home in America. Digitally created art in rich tones and soft pastel hues combines with simple text to illustrate their voyage and arrival at an apartment in the city. “Like feathery seeds . . . they find a new home even in the tiniest space.” At her new school, the young girl is shy at first, but like a flower, she raises her face to the sun and rain, and flowers into friendship with her schoolmates as the seasons advance. Her family’s bravery and strength are mirrored in the small but mighty dandelion, happily planted in the soil. Back matter explains the value of the dandelion over the centuries and shows a photo of Lee and other children in the refugee camp. A testimony to one immigrant’s positive outlook on America and the home she found. - Copyright 2021 Booklist. School Library Journal - 05/01/2021 PreS-Gr 2—Like Thao Lam's The Paper Boat, Lee's story begins with a childhood experience set against a threatening landscape from which her family fled: "Like feathery seeds, we take flight, finding a new home even in the tiniest of spaces." The scene right before a cozy, comforting city nightscape of lighted windows in apartment buidings is comprised of refugees and barbed wire, camouflage and barracks. A familiar story of an asylum-seeking family unfolds in idyllic scenes of a child's play with a dandelion. The child and mother move in, settle down, and in one scene are shown reading Lee's book In the Snow. From that reassurance in the backdrop comes some of the obstacles; the narrator, possibly Cambodian, is shy, but finds a little ginger-haired girl as a friend. By autumn, dandelion seeds are scattered in the wind and another girl, wearing a hijab, and her brother are the newcomers. An end note explains that the Cambodian refugee camp was in Thailand before the family emigrated to the United States in 1975. The simplicity of Lee's melodic telling belies the serious and complex events before she arrived in the United States, and treats childhood and friendships as natural acts, arising from good soil and tending. It's as hopeful as her dedication, to the country that welcomed her, and leaves to readers an expectation that they must rise to. VERDICT In digital illustrations that have the grace of watercolors, this story starts with displacement and ends with deep-rooted belonging, for every collection, and every child.—Kimberly Olson Fakih, School Library Journal - Copyright 2021 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Loading...
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