From School Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 2—Angelina longs for the warm sun, tropical food, and familiar life of Jamaica. Folk-style paintings contrast the black and gray mood of her new home in New York City with her vibrant memories and daydreams of her island home. After reading a newspaper article about Brooklyn's Carnival celebration, Mama arranges for her daughter to participate in the parade. Wearing a costume of bright cloth and shiny beads with glitter sparkling on her face, Angelina feels at home amid the music and dancers. Although this experience may not have the power to banish homesickness permanently, it does allow Angelina to accept New York as her "island in the sun." The point is well made that with the assistance of loving family members, immigrant children can adapt to new surroundings. All of the characters are depicted with glossy ink-colored skin and hair made from dots or squiggles in an array of bright greens, blues, and violets. Eye-opening hues—a salmon-colored airplane, the yellow of a taxi, a golden sun—blend with pastel backgrounds to make the images stand out. The Carnival tradition, and its importance to West Indian culture in the United States, is explained in an author's note.—
Julie R. Ranelli, Kent Island Branch Library, Stevensville, MD Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Surrounded by the towering buildings that hide the sun and sky in New York City, Angelina dreams of home in Jamaica and longs for island food, friends, and family. Using simple, poetic text and small, framed, brilliantly colored pictures, Winter sets the child's two worlds on opposite sides of each double-page spread. On the left-hand page, Angelina eats cereal for breakfast in the U.S.; on the right she longs for mangos, guavas, and papayas. One the left, she rides the bus to school; on the right, she remembers the feel of her toes in the dust of a dirt road. Mama says, "this is home, " and things are better in the U.S., where both Mama and Papa have work. But Angelina can't let go of her longing for her grandmother and her home far away--until she joins in activities for the annual Carnival parade and finds a bit of her beloved island in the Brooklyn sun. Children will be drawn to the art, and new immigrants will recognize not only the sense of loss but also that the traditions they have brought with them enrich America.
Hazel RochmanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
