  | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 08/01/2011 As a grandmother watches snowflakes fall past her apartment window, she thinks of her grandson far away in a hot African village and longs to be with him again. Massachusetts author MacLachlan dedicates this picture book to her grandchild, who was born in Tanzania, and her story’s very simple words, in lyrical free verse, will touch young kids everywhere who feel a bond with a distant grandparent (“even though I am here / and you are there”). Collier’s bright, warm watercolor-and-collage illustrations show the two separate worlds as well as the bonds as the grandmother remembers visits with her grandson and imagines what they could do together now. At her home, she could teach him to skate on the icy pond. At his home, they could swim in a gleaming lake, look at monkeys, and share books. Filled with yearning, the story builds to a climax as the pictures show the grandmother packing her bag, sitting on a plane, surprising her grandson with her arrival, and giving him a loving embrace. - Copyright 2011 Booklist. School Library Journal - 08/01/2011 K-Gr 2—A grandmother who lives in the U.S. prepares to visit her grandson, who lives in Africa. While the moon is common to them both, she points out the many differences in their lives as she reminisces about past times together. When it is cold in one place, it is hot and dry in the other. There is ice-skating where she lives and lake swimming where he lives. Always, though, there is the moon, and as the story comes to a close, grandparent and grandchild are reunited under it. Collier's vibrant illustrations are a blend of watercolor and his trademark collage. This is a wonderful book to contrast different lifestyles. Pair it with Nigel Gray's A Country Far Away (Scholastic, 1989) to further illustrate cultural differences and human commonalities.—Joan Kindig, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA - Copyright 2011 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Loading...
 |