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Summary
Summary
As her father prepares for a trip back to his childhood home in Ethiopia, Desta begins to worry. Where does her father truly belong--in the village of his youth or here in America with her? What was growing up in Ethiopia like? And will her father's love for his family be enough to bridge these two worlds and bring him back to her? *A powerful portrait of a contemporary American immigrant family *From a Coretta Scott King Honor-winning artist *Portrays a heartwarming father-daughter relationship *Junior Library Guild Selection
Author Notes
JANE KURTZ lives in Portland, Oregon. She has written more than thirty fiction and nonfiction books for children, including Lanie and Lanie's Real Adventure from the American Girl Today series, Anna Was Here , and River Friendly, River Wild , a story in verse for which she received a Golden Kite award. Visit her website at www.janekurtz.com ."
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Lewis's (previously paired with Kurtz for Fire on the Mountain) luminous watercolors light up this warm tale of family ties and the tug of homelands left behind. When Desta's father receives word that his mother is ill, he determines to return to his native Ethiopia to visit her. He tells American-born Desta of Ethiopia's beauty, but she hears only the differences-dinners cooked in a firepit, a night wind that is often "cold as old bones" and that carries with it the howling of hyenas. "Your home is too wild," she tells him. Besides, she worries that he might not come back. Kurtz cuts right to the heart of a common childhood concern, giving the angst of separation a fresh twist with the exotic African destination. And in soaringly lyrical language, she paints a word picture of the Ethiopia where she herself grew up, a place where "shepherds pipe songs of longing in the hills, and thousands of flamingos flap in a pink cloud over the Great Rift Valley lakes." Lewis's brush is deft: in a series of tender character portraits he reveals the affectionate bond between Desta and her father, and he illuminates the contrast between the two cultures through his graceful landscapes. A haunting blend of the familiar and foreign. Ages 6-9. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
As he prepares to visit his homeland, a father gently comforts his daughter with his memories of life in Ethiopia. Desta has trouble picturing her father's childhood--thousands of flamingos, a house with no electricity, walking barefoot to school--but eventually understands that he misses his old home and that he will come back. Details in the watercolor illustrations extend the text's poetic prose. From HORN BOOK Fall 2000, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Ages 4^-8. Like Allen Say's Grandfather's Journey (1993), this picture book captures the immigrant experience when generations live far apart and even happy family life is mixed with longing for "back home." Kurtz tells it from the point of view of Desta, a young African American girl whose father must return "home" to Ethiopia to visit his sick mother. Desta can't bear the parting, and as Daddy holds her close and tells her stories of his childhood, she comes to know how hard it is for him to be parted from the place and people he left behind. Occasionally, the writing is self-consciously poetic about "glimmering" sadness, but both the words and the pictures are wonderfully specific about the particular place Desta's father remembers. There are no generic images of "steamy Africa." Lewis' stunning, realistic watercolors move from loving close-ups of father and daughter inside their comfortable house to double-page spreads of the Ethiopian countryside, where the pink cloud of flamingos ripples up from the lake and the hyenas, "strange coughing cry" can be heard in the night. The pictures show Desta rooted in her local American school and neighborhood; it's also clear that her father's images enrich her life here, even as she longs for his return. --Hazel Rochman
School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3-Desta's grandmother is ill in faraway Ethiopia, and her father must return to his native land to help out. As he cuddles his daughter on his lap, he describes the place of his birth. The child pairs his experiences with hers and wonders whether the cowbells he remembers sound like the wind chime on their front porch. The man's love and yearning for home is obvious, and the little girl worries that he may never return to her. Finally reassured that he will come back, she asks him so many questions about his childhood home that when he sings in his native tongue, she begins to see "-a pink cloud of flamingos rippling up from a dark blue lake-." Lewis captures the lyricism and rich imagery of the text with his evocative, realistic watercolors. Soft browns, blues, greens, and pinks predominate in paintings that flow to the edge of pages for scenes set here, and fade off into white for those set in the Ethiopia of memory and longing. Text and illustrations combine to immerse readers in the sights and sounds of the African homeland, and the beautifully crafted whole gives fresh meaning to the terms "family," "separation," and "home."-Diane S. Marton, Arlington County Library, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Desta's father is planning a trip back home to Ethiopia, to visit his mother, who is ill. He reminisces fondly about his homeland, where purple sugar cane grows, and where, as a child, he used to walk to school barefoot. But Desta is anxious, feeling uncertain about her father's absence and whether he will return. At school, she reads about Ethiopia and begins to consider the differences between that country and hers. And it is only then that she begins to consider what it must be like for her grandmother, whom she's never met, to miss her son in the same way she'll miss her dad. When school's over, Desta peels off her shoes and walks home barefoot in the sun. That night, cuddling with her father, Desta knows he must go, but now she understands he will come back with new stories to tell. Lewis's (My Rows and Piles of Coins, 1999, etc.) lovely watercolors are filled with the little details that establish place, whether it be Desta's house, with its pictures of family, lace curtains, and modern kitchen or Ethiopia, with its mud streets, roaming cattle, and majestic scenery. Likewise they reflect both the tenderness of feelings between parent and child, and the wonder of pink flamingo feathers reflected in the blue waters of a faraway homeland. A thoughtful story of the family ties that bind, no matter how far apart. (Picture book. 6-8)
