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Summary
Summary
Sophie lives with Mama and Daddy and Grandpa, who spends his days by the window. Every day after school, it's Grandpa whom Sophie runs to.
"Here I am, Grandpa!"
"Ah, Sophie, how was your day?"
As Sophie and her grandpa talk, he asks her to find items he's "lost" throughout the day, guiding Sophie on a tour through his daily life and connecting their generations in this sweet, playful picture book from Richard Jackson, illustrated by Caldecott Medalist and Laura Ingalls Wilder Award winner Jerry Pinkney.
Author Notes
Richard Jackson, co-founder of Bradbury Press, Orchard Books, and DK Ink, has been an editor and publisher since 1962. He is the author of Have A Look, Says Book , illustrated by Kevin Hawkes, and lives in Towson, Maryland.
Jerry Pinkney (1939-2021) was the author and illustrator of more than one hundred books for young readers, including The Lion and the Mouse , for which he earned the Caldecott Medal. He also received five Caldecott Honors, six Coretta Scott King Illustrator Awards, four Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honors, five New York Times Best Illustrated Book awards, the Children's Literature Legacy Award for Lifetime Achievement, an induction into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame, and an appointment to the National Council on the Arts by President George W. Bush in 2003.
The first children's book artist elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Pinkney retold such fairy tales as The Little Mermaid , Aesop's Fables , and Little Red Riding Hood , and he illustrated many stories celebrating Black culture including Patricia C. McKissack's Mirandy and Brother Wind , Julius Lester's John Henry , and Richard Jackson's In Plain Sight .
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
An African-American girl named Sophie shares a brownstone with her parents and her wheelchair-bound grandfather, "who lives by the window." He's always there to wave goodbye as she boards the school bus, and he's waiting to play a special game of hide-and-seek when she returns: Grandpa pretends to have lost an object, and intrepid Sophie locates each one, hidden in plain sight. The everyday items-a paperclip, rubber band, lemon drop-are cleverly but not impossibly hidden in Pinkney's signature pencil and watercolor illustrations. Readers will delight in scouring Grandpa's pleasingly detailed bedroom, which brims with books, art, and an ever-present tabby, to find the missing items before Sophie does. But the best part of this collaboration between the longtime editor and the Caldecott Medalist is the playfulness that oozes from Jackson's well-chosen words and the warmth of Pinkney's artwork. There's one thing that's never missing from this gentle story about a special bond between the generations, and that's the love Grandpa and Sophie have for each other. Ages 4-7. Illustrator's agent: Sheldon Fogelman, Sheldon Fogelman Agency. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Sophie enjoys playing a hiding (and finding) game with her beloved grandfather. Each day after school, Sophie checks in with Grandpa, who sits in his wheelchair at an upstairs window. She asks about his day, and he mentions a small item that hes lost somewhere in his room, which he challenges Sophie to find. It could be anything: a paper clip, a rubber band, a straw, a paintbrush, a lemon drop. Help me find it, will you, with your bright eyes? Sophies joy at helping her Grandpa is evident in Pinkneys delicate watercolors. Indeed, the detailed illustrations we have come to expect from Pinkney are the perfect hiding places for these objects. There is much to be learned about Sophies life in this evocative art: Grandpa reads poetry; every corner of the familys homey brownstone holds books and newspapers; paintings and military memorabilia fill up the wall space. What makes the book special for readers is that they can play along with Sophie and Grandpa, finding the missing object buried cleverly in the illustrations, hiding in plain sight. And, if anyone cannot find the object, on the next page-turn Pinkney provides visual hints when Sophie discovers the location. Jacksons text is direct, vigorous, and colloquial; the twist at the endwhen Sophie turns the tables and gives Grandpa something to findwill warm hearts. robin smith (c) Copyright 2016. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Jackson's second picture book (following Have a Look, Says Book, 2016) celebrates the joys of close observation. Sophie lives with her parents and wheelchair-bound grandfather. After school each day, Sophie and Grandpa engage in a game in which he challenges her to find an object hidden in plain sight. I had me a paperclip, you know? Nice and shiny. Now it's vanished. Help me find it, will you, with your bright eyes? Pinkney's signature pencil-and-watercolor artwork portrays a pleasantly cluttered room in a big-city brownstone, offering readers much to ponder as they search for a paperclip, a rubber band, a drinking straw, a paintbrush, and a lemon drop. The objects are moderately difficult (but not impossible) to spot, which should give readers ample time to thoroughly peruse the artistic details: books and newspapers, a stamp collection, photographs and mementos, and an ever-present cat which all provide insight into the experiences of this loving, African American family. This makes a good one-on-one read-aloud for those not quite ready for Martin Handford's Where's Waldo? series.--Weisman, Kay Copyright 2016 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
A PICTURE BOOK about looking around is like a song about listening to the radio - what may seem like an easy or even redundant idea becomes, in the right hands, something luminous and perfectly devised. A stack of new books about young people learning to examine the world all strive, with varying approaches, to capture the magic of songs that sing gloriously about themselves. (Roxy Music's "Oh Yeah," I'm looking at you.) "The Branch" is by the prolific author Mireille Messier and even-more-prolific illustrator Pierre Pratt, both from the nation of Canada, where, legend has it, the rich artistic tradition comes from enduring the dark and dangerous winters. The book's unnamed heroine's imagination runs wild in the winter - an early spread finds her dreaming of being aloft in a tree during an icy storm, in full queen regalia, including a crown of icicles, while ordinary (presumably Canadian) citizens are slipping to the ground. In a refreshing reverse from so many picture books, the world of imagination collapses into the everyday, when the storm claims a thick wooden victim. "That was the branch I sat on, jumped from, played under," she mourns. "It was my castle, my spy base, my ship." And for a moment, surrounded by folks cleaning up the neighborhood, she seems quite lost. Help arrives in the form of Deus Ex Next-Door Neighbor, and quicker than you can say "four-page montage," the two of them have looked carefully at the branch and rebuilt it into a swing, which hangs from the surviving branches on the last, brilliant green page. Pratt's slashy thick lines, which make the ice storm so dangerous-looking, are a canopy of spring leaves for the little heroine, whose dead-pan face finally breaks into a smile under the simple last line of text. Messier, alas, often gives us a paragraph when one short line would do, crowding some of the artwork and slowing the pace just when you want it, well, to swing. Nana, the elderly heroine of Simona Ciraolo's "The Lines on Nana's Face," had quite the swinging time back in the day. Now, in advanced age, even when she's happy on her birthday, "it looks like she might also be a bit sad, and a little surprised, and slightly worried, all at the same time." The young narrating granddaughter, bright and squirmy in Ciraolo's loose and colorful style, sits with Nana in her solarium and gets a story to go with each wrinkle on her grandmother's face. The page turns take us back through Nana's life: a rural childhood, teenage frolics, young love, marriage, moving, taking us up to the moment of the grandchild's birth. Some may find the premise a little off-putting - the girl seems old enough to be told not to pry into people's wrinkles - and Nana's life contains few surprises. But the art and the pace sell the journey. Nana and the girl talk in bright close-ups; the flashbacks are wordless full spreads, encouraging us to supply the missing information. "The Branch" suggests that life requires occasional elbow grease; Nana, less excitingly, suggests that life just ends up happening. But what else is there to say, really, at a birthday party? It's also difficult to know what to say about the magnificent Jerry Pinkney, whose every-award-winning impressionistic realism (or is it realistic impressionism?) is both a wildly imitated style and unmistakably his. This time around he's teamed up with Richard Jackson, a long-time editor and publisher of children's literature who began a career writing picture books following his retirement. His first picture book, "Have a Look, Says Book," was loopy with wordplay; "In Plain Sight" is something of a visual treasure hunt. "Sophie lives with Mama and Daddy and Grandpa, who lives by the window," the book begins, and we see Grandpa waving goodbye to Sophie as she boards a school bus aglow with Pinkney's soft yellow. When Sophie gets home from school, the game begins: Grandpa has hidden small everyday objects around the apartment, and Sophie has to find them. "You have to look," he reminds her, and again and again, in plain sight but difficult to spot, are the paper clip, the rubber band ... and eventually, Sophie herself, behind the curtains. Grandpa's wheelchair, omnipresent and unmentioned, is a quiet bit of visibility and the driving force behind a game that keeps you in the same floor of a brownstone all day long. But the book's prime appeal is that it leads you to stare and stare at the work of Jerry Pinkney - one of the great American pastimes. "The Branch" has you look at an object, "The Lines on Nana's Face" has you look at a person, "In Plain Sight" has you look around the room. "A Small Thing ... but Big" has you look around the world - although, when you are the very young Lizzie, the whole world is a little gated park. With an unmentioned mother (or babysitter?) keeping quiet watch on a bench, Lizzie encounters something scary that stops her in her tracks - "She ran close to a dog" - and then, in short conversations with a dapper old man, gets more and more confident. Patting a dog, walking a dog, walking a dog by yourself - each step is "a small thing, but big." It's an audacious theme, risky in its simplicity. But if Tony Johnston gets a little pushy with the title phrase, his care in the quiet repetition, giving words like "worry," "quiet" and "springingly" growing power, makes the text as delicious as a brave afternoon. Hadley Hooper's illustrations - in a breezy, twee territory not far from William Bee and Ed Fotheringham - move us all around the park, zooming in on blades of grass or rising to an aerial view as Lizzie gets bolder and bolder. The world here, as in any good picture book, is wondrous. One only wants to keep looking. DANIEL HANDLER'S new book by Lemony Snicket, "Goldfish Ghost" will be published in the spring.
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-Sophie's grandfather lives in her house, and while his mobility is restricted, his tender feelings for his granddaughter know no bounds. He waves her off to school from his second-floor window, and she comes to visit him every afternoon. Their daily routine includes the man asking for the child's help in retrieving an everyday object that has somehow "gone missing." All of the items are in plain sight, if, that is, one knows where to look. Bright-eyed Sophie is always up for the challenge and is thorough and methodical as she searches through Grandpa's room-neat but chock-full of a busy lifetime of acquired books and mementos-to locate the paper clip, rubber band, straw, or paintbrush. Sharp-eyed viewers will glean that this man, now in a wheelchair, was once a soldier and an athlete and reads poetry and paints. The simple text is largely made up of the good-natured conversations that surround the game and reflect the warmth and joy that Sophie and Grandpa find in each other. Pinkney's lush and lovely watercolors are by turns delicate, energetic, and effusive as he captures his engaging African American characters and their homey domicile. VERDICT This appealing story about a dynamic intergenerational relationship is large enough to share with a group, but individual children will want to pore over the art to spot all of the details in plain sight.-Luann Toth, School Library Journal © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Readers will tune up their observation skills while spending time with a grandfather and granddaughter who keep life interesting. Sophie, a light-brownskinned little girl who lives with Mama, Daddy, and Grandpa, has a special relationship with her grandfather. Every day of the week, when Sophie arrives home from school, saying, Here I am, Grandpa, he pretends to have lost something that he needs Sophies help to find. Theres a paperclip, a favorite paintbrush, a rubber band, and moreall of which are hidden in plain sight. Jackson and Pinkneys quiet snapshot of one week in the life of a close-knit African-American family shows how significant intergenerational relationships can be for both children and seniors. Grandpa, who uses a wheelchair, looks forward to his daily time with Sophie as much as she awaits hers with him. Pinkneys exquisitely detailed watercolor paintings are a feast for the eye, and the challenge of finding some of the hidden objects will also make readers observe closely. A tabby cat, who seems to have as much personality as the humans, appears on every page and will remind readers familiar with Pinkneys work of the animals in other picture books he has illustrated such as Sam and the Tigers and The Lion and the Mouse, although this feline has no anthropomorphic characteristics. A fabulous family story with something for the young and old alike. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
