2013, Candlewick
HC (no DC on this library copy?) $16.99 TPPL
40 lovely, thick pages
Goodreads rating: 4.20
My rating: 4
Endpapers: blue - denim-y - streaked with rainwater?
Illustrations: acrylic gouache: current day in sepia and color; memories from the past in sepia tones only. The memory illustrations are within an almost-full-page block, while the contemporary scenes go to the page edges - subtly different
This is a truly beautiful book. I love Paul Fleischman's words - though there are two places in the story that I felt like he needed to say just a bit more, I pulled at the pages to see if I'd missed any. He is definitely one of my all-time favorite authors. The illustrations are particularly lovely. This book is about how we record memories when we can't read or write. Great premise. Good storytelling. Super book.
Goodreads review: "Pick whatever you like most. Then I’ll tell you its story."
When a little girl visits her great-grandfather at his curio-filled home, she chooses an unusual object to learn about: an old cigar box. What she finds inside surprises her: a collection of matchboxes making up her great-grandfather’s diary, harboring objects she can hold in her hand, each one evoking a memory. Together they tell of his journey from Italy to a new country, before he could read and write — the olive pit his mother gave him to suck on when there wasn’t enough food; a bottle cap he saw on his way to the boat; a ticket still retaining the thrill of his first baseball game. With a narrative entirely in dialogue, Paul Fleischman makes immediate the two characters’ foray into the past. With warmth and an uncanny eye for detail, Bagram Ibatoulline gives expressive life to their journey through time — and toward each other.
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