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Summary
Summary
In a true tale of a young girl in Iran and her grandmother, this beautiful ode to family celebrates small moments of love that become lifelong memories.
In this big universe full of many moons, I have traveled and seen many wonders, but I have never loved anything or anyone the way I love my grandma.
While Mina is growing up in Iran, the center of her world is her grandmother. Whether visiting friends next door, going to the mosque for midnight prayers during Ramadan, or taking an imaginary trip around the planets, Mina and her grandma are never far apart. At once deeply personal and utterly universal, Mina Javaherbin's words make up a love letter of the rarest sort: the kind that shares a bit of its warmth with every reader. Soft, colorful, and full of intricate patterns, Lindsey Yankey's illustrations feel like a personal invitation into the coziest home, and the adoration between Mina and her grandma is evident on every page.
Author Notes
Mina Javaherbin has written several award-winning picture books, including Soccer Star, illustrated by Renato Alarcão, and Goal!, illustrated by A. G. Ford. She lives in Southern California.
Lindsey Yankey studied illustration at the University of Kansas and is the author-illustrator of Bluebird and Sun and Moon. She lives in Lawrence, Kansas.
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
"When I was growing up in Iran, my grandma lived with us. I followed her everywhere. When she swept, I swept. When she cooked, I cooked. When she prayed, I prayed like her, too." Thus begins Javaherbin's narrative tribute to her Iranian grandmother, which affectionately sweeps the reader into the heart of their daily relationship. Readers follow along as the two say namaz at dawn, buy bread to share with their neighbors, sew chadors, and share a meal during Ramadan. In blues, roses, and golds, Yankey's exquisite mixed-media illustrations relay details: Persian designs, dreams of space travel, baskets of bread hoisted from the street. Together, the narrative and images result in a deeply personal story that offers a broader portrait of a tender familial experience. Ages 4--8. (Aug.)
Horn Book Review
The unnamed narrator recalls her childhood growing up in Iran (where the author also grew up) with her beloved grandmother, who lives with the family. The child accompanies her grandma on her daily routines ("When she swept, I swept. When she cooked, I cooked. When she prayed, I prayed like her, too"), through which the child experiences joyful elements of Iranian Islamic culture and acts of faith. They also spend time with friends (Grandma's best friend's granddaughter is our narrator's best friend); and as the older women laugh, drink coffee, and knit blankets for their mosque and church, respectively, the children (and readers) witness a beautiful interfaith friendship. Yankey's muted illustrations work well to convey cherished memories and love, with thoughtful cultural details incorporated throughout-a hopscotch board with numbers in Persian, a henna stain on the back of a hand. Striking Persian patterns providing an eye-catching, but not disruptive, contrast to the quotidian activities. Appended notes on the copyright page provide heartfelt details about the author's and illustrator's grandmothers. A lovely homage to the unconditional love and wisdom of elders. Ariana Hussain November/December 2019 p.70(c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
The author reminisces about her grandmother, with whom she spent a childhood in Iran. Short vignettes fondly describe mundane activities: waking up together for namaz (Islamic prayer), collecting bread from the delivery boy, visiting their Christian neighbors next door. Little Mina plays hopscotch with her friend while their grandmothers knit together a usefully inclusive note, as most of the memories revolve around Islamic tradition. Mina helps her grandma craft long, veiling chadors, and during Ramadan she playfully pretends to join in the fasting. Yankey's mixed-media illustrations will transport readers to an idyllic twentieth-century Iran, recalling the style of Persian art, with dusty, muted colors and intricately patterned rugs. A sweet tranquility is evoked in all the elements, touched by a gentle melancholy when Mina and her friend imagine their grandmas together in heaven. While this book presents a relationship in a specific cultural context, a subtle message of interreligious peace and unity shines through, supported by the memories' emotional universality, through which young readers will learn empathy and cultural understanding.--Ronny Khuri Copyright 2019 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2--Grandparents can have an enormous effect on their grandchildren and books that showcase such relationships are always welcome. The Iranian grandmother here has endless patience and love for her little granddaughter. When Grandma swept, the child swept; when Grandma prayed, the girl prayed; and when Grandma cooked, her granddaughter did as well. She follows her around daily, mirroring everything she does. The love and kindness the child receives is satisfying and speaks to the bond between the two characters. Some of their interactions are specific to their culture, such as fasting during Ramadan and donning their chadors and walking together to the mosque. The illustrations are created using a soft, inviting palette that incorporates tile and rug patterns particular to Iran. This book offers both windows and mirrors into a warm and loving familial relationship and will be appreciated by a wide range of young readers. VERDICT A lovely book for anyone looking for intergenerational stories for one-on-one or group sharing.--Joan Kindig, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA
Guardian Review
A scruffy puppy's friendship, a young adventurer's guide to the wild, poltergeist spooks and scroll down for the best new books for teens Spring is bursting with good books for five- to eight-year-olds, and newly independent readers will lap up the cat-and-dog tale of Jasper and Scruff (Little Tiger) by author-illustrator Nicola Colton. Fastidious feline Jasper aspires to membership of the elite Sophisticats, but when Scruff, a bedraggled, chronically enthusiastic puppy, ruins his chances, he discovers that companionship matters more. Adorable illustrations, snappy dialogue and outrageous puns make it the cat's pyjamas for bedtime reading, too. For slightly older kids, especially those navigating friendship challenges, Rebecca Patterson's A Moon Girl Stole My Friend (Andersen) is superb. In a gently down-at-heel future, complete with robot teaching assistants, cyber pets and flying cars, Lyla's best friend, Bianca, falls under the spell of mean girl Petra Lumen. Newly arrived from the Moon, Petra is sleek, fashionable and everything Lyla isn't. Will Bianca ever see Lyla in the same way again? This is the first in a series: Patterson's deft illustrations and keen understanding of playground dynamics give it considerable child-appeal. A clarion call to the child explorer, Teddy Keen's The Lost Book of Adventure (Frances Lincoln), transcribed, apparently, from the notebooks of an unknown adventurer, is a spectacular immersion in the life of the wild. How to make a raft, build a tree house, pack an explorer's kitbag (and poo in the great outdoors) - it's all here, laid out in fascinating detail on pages illustrated with coloured pencils and charm. In picture books, the wild theme continues: Benji Davies's story Tad (HarperCollins) is saturated with colour and steeped in the fear and excitement of growing up. The smallest almost-a-frog in her pond, Tad is too brave and quick to let bottom-dwelling, tadpole-gulping Big Blub catch up with her, though all her siblings seem to have vanished. This witty coming-of-age story is seasoned with just the right amount of terror. There are brightly collaged monsters aplenty in Jan Pie´nkowski and David Walser's condensed, powerful retelling of The Odyssey (Puffin). Featuring a cocky Odysseus, colossal cut-paper gods and strong episodic storytelling, with each new adventure headed by a teasing couplet, it is bold and intensely satisfying for children and adults alike. In contrast, My Grandma and Me (Walker) by Mina Javaherbin, illustrated by Lindsey Yankey, is deeply domestic, filled with exquisite textures - chadors, rugs, the braided crusts of loaves. A little girl growing up with her grandmother in Iran wakes with her, prays with her, cooks with her, and "helps" with everything she does. Their Christian neighbours are their dear friends, religion never standing in the way of fondness. This apparently uneventful story is imbued with quiet richness; the careful delight of daily routines adding up to a lifetime's worth of love. For readers of nine and up, Sam Gayton's The Last Zoo (Andersen) squares up to the probability of a denuded and polluted future. Pia is a zookeeper, tending her charges on a run-down ark; the creatures she looks after, though, are angels, not animals. They come from the Seam, a fault in reality where skilled operatives can shape curious creatures, humanity's last hope for repairing the damage it has done to the world. On Pia's 10th birthday, however, much to her despair, the angels disappear. Poignant, strange, and featuring an extraordinary cast of creatures, from smellephants to Fabergé chickens, Gayton's latest novel is his most moving and ambitious yet. Strangeness also saturates David Almond's graphic-novel collaboration with Dave McKean, Joe Quinn's Poltergeist (Walker). Davie and his friend Geordie don't believe Joe when he tells them there's a poltergeist in his house - but once they are inside, Davie sees objects fly and feels a presence. Could there be something there? Blurring the boundaries between text and image, child and adult, life and afterlife, Almond and McKean create a sense of the meeting point between the human and sublime. Finally, Little Badman and the Invasion of the Killer Aunties (Puffin) by comedians Humza Arshad and Henry White, illustrated with anarchic humour by Aleksei Bitskoff, is a hilarious story about Humza Khan; always in trouble, cuddly rather than ripped, and determined (against all odds and common sense) to become a global rap star. But when the Asian aunties of the neighbourhood start replacing all the teachers, it's Humza and his friends who'll have to foil their fiendish plan. Microwaved pants and killer bees feature in this rib-aching comic caper, heightened with moments of real tenderness and heart. Teenagers roundup One Shot by Tanya Landman, Barrington Stoke, £7.99 Landman is known for her ferocious, affecting historical fiction, and this account of Annie Oakley's early life - institutionalised by her mother, abused by foster parents, yet unerringly sure of herself and her skill with a gun - is one of her best. Grim yet uplifting, this slim, tough book will grip its reader from first page to last. Proud compiled by Juno Dawson, Stripes, £7.99 This anthology of stories, poems and artwork by LGBTQ writers and illustrators, including Jess Vallance, Dean Atta and Moïra Fowley-Doyle, is a rainbow box of delights. From a lesbian Pride and Prejudice set at a high school to a football team defending a trans player, there's something for everyone - humour, romance and activism. Dawson's introduction, recalling Section 28, is particularly poignant. The Year I Didn't Eat by Samuel Pollen, ZunTold, £7.99 Despite its focus on eating disorders, Pollen's debut is far from a heavy-handed "issue book". Following 14-year-old Max through a year of contending with anorexia, it interweaves family crisis, his nascent interest in geocaching, and the baffling mock-advances of a gorgeous but eccentric girl at school in a moving and hilarious story. Internment by Samira Ahmed, Atom, £7.99 Even after the census, Layla doesn't expect her family to be interned for being Muslim, shunted into desert camps by soldiers with guns. Her parents want her to keep her head down and focus on survival - but Layla is determined to resist. Though there are moments that stretch reader credulity (the ease with which her boyfriend enters the camp), this is a tremendous novel.
Kirkus Review
Love, childhood adventures, religion, and tradition are the centerpieces of this book about the author and her late grandmother, with whom she grew up in the same household in pre-revolutionary Iran.The narrator joins her grandmother, whom she loves dearly, in everything as she goes about her day. When grandma sweeps, she does too; when grandma wakes up for prayer at dawn, she does too; and when grandma sews herself a chador, she helps, even if nominally. The delicately lined illustrations gracefully evince both the mundane and the magic in the details of the narrator's everyday life as a child: the boy delivering towers of bread on his bike; Ramadan meals with her grandma, both at home and at the mosque; and playtime with her friend Annette while both of their grandmothers chat, knit blankets, and drink coffee. This sweet story is intermingled naturally with details about Iranian and Islamic traditions and values and supported by such visuals as an easy mix of traditional and Western attire and thoughtful inclusion of Persian design elements. It peaks in a moment of solidarity between the two grandmothers, each praying for the other to go to heaven, but via their different Muslim and Christian religions: a poignant, inclusive note. In its celebration of specific manifestations of universal love, this is highly recommended for families and educators, Muslim and non- alike, looking to teach children about Islam.A deep and beautiful book modeling grandmothers as heroines. (Picture book. 4-9) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
