Anne Sibley O'Brien knew she wanted to be an artist by the time she was seven. Born in Chicago, she moved with her family to New Hampshire on her first birthday. Six years later, her parents were hired as medical missionaries and assigned to serve in South Korea. She was raised bilingual and bicultural, living in the cities of Seoul and Taegu, and on the island of Kojedo. Returning to the US at age 19, Annie attended Mount Holyoke College where she majored in studio art. She spent her junior year back in Korea at Ewha Women's University in Seoul, where she studied Korean arts, including oriental painting. During college, she decided that she wanted to pursue a career in children's book illustration. She has illustrated more than twenty-five picture books, including the Jamaica books by Juanita Havill (Houghton Mifflin) and the Talking Walls books by Margy Burns Knight (Tilsbury). Anne lives on Peaks Island in Maine.
*Readers walk in the shoes of three students struggling after
immigrating to the United States
Readers meet Maria, from Guatemala, Jin, a South Korean boy, and
Fatimah, a Somali girl who wears the hijab. O’Brien fosters empathy
by portraying only one challenge each must overcome rather than
overwhelming readers with many. Maria struggles with the language.
Though back home, “Our voices flowed like water and flew between us
like birds,” the sounds of English elude her. Clever, phonetically
spelled dialogue balloons bring home to readers how foreign English
sounds to Maria. For Jin, writing is the trouble; the scribbles of
American letters close the door to the wonderful world of stories.
Fatimah’s challenge is abstract: she cannot find her place in this
new classroom. Gradually, each child begins to bridge the
gap—soccer, stories and shared words, artwork—and feel like part of
a community. O’Brien’s watercolor-and-digital illustrations
masterfully use perspective, white space, and the contrast between
the children “back home” and in their new settings to highlight the
transition from outsider to friend. Other diverse students fill the
classrooms, including a child in a wheelchair. An author’s note
tells O’Brien’s own immigrant story, how difficult the transition
is, the reasons families might emigrate, and how readers might
help.
Whether readers are new themselves or meeting those who are new,
there are lessons to be learned here about perseverance, bravery,
and inclusion, and O’Brien’s lessons are heartfelt and poetically
rendered.
-Kirkus Reviews, *starred review
Being the new student in a classroom is difficult enough, but when
the child comes from another culture and speaks a different
language, it can be extremely stressful and lonely. Three
youngsters enter a new school—Maria from Guatemala, Jin from Korea,
and Fatimah from Somalia—and each one experiences the feeling of
not fitting in. They slowly learn to find ways to assimilate and,
in fact, to shine as their inclusion in the classroom enriches the
lives of the other children. Maria asks to join a group playing
soccer, Jin teaches a fellow student some words written in Korean,
and Fatimah gains enough confidence to share her artwork with the
group. Brightly hued watercolors on stark white backgrounds show
the children’s adjustment to the new situation and their
classmates’ ready acceptance. “A Note from the Author” page
includes a list of recommended readings on the same subject.
VERDICT The title would be useful in sparking a discussion, and the
simple text makes it a good choice for beginning readers.
-School Library Journal
This well-conceived, thoughtful picture book traces the first day
at a new school for three children with very different experiences
of adjusting, linguistically and culturally.
"Back home I knew the language," says Maria, remembering her days
of playing fútbol (American soccer) with her friends. "Here there
are new words. I can't understand them." Anne Sibley O'Brien (The
Legend of Hong Kil Dong) shows Maria on the sidelines of her new
school hearing alien sounds while watching others play ("wun too";
"Mai tern," say the thought balloons).
Jin is confronted with an entirely new alphabet: "Back home I could
read and write," he says. "I shaped the letters and stacked them
like blocks into words." As with Maria's example, Sibley O'Brien
depicts Jin's experience in his homeland (Korea) on the left, and
the scene in his new school on the right, with letters that "lie on
the page like scribbles and scratches." Fatimah, wearing a hijab,
says, "Here there are new ways.... I cannot find my place." But
when her teacher asks the students to make drawings of life in
their community, Fatimah volunteers to show her picture and
connects with a classmate. Jin also makes a friend, and Maria finds
her way through soccer.
Because Sibley O'Brien spotlights three examples, no child will
feel singled out. She paves the way for teachers and parents to
share this with children both as a way of preparing a new student,
and as a way to welcome a classmate who may share this trio's
predicament.
-Shelf Awareness
Based on her own experiences living in another country as a young
child, Sibley shows the challenges of three new American students
as they navigate their first day of school. Maria, from Guatemala,
struggles with English, but her love of soccer enables her to make
new friends. Writing is difficult for Jin, from South Korea, but he
finds that sharing his language with another student helps him
unlock his stories. Meanwhile, Fatimah, from Somalia, is having
trouble fitting in and is afraid of making mistakes. Encouraged by
a classmate, she uses drawing as a way to connect her two cultures.
The simplicity of the narrative combined with vibrant watercolor
artwork depicting a wide range of diversity results in a powerful
message of empathy for the immigrant experience. Additionally, an
author's note explains why some families emigrate and how readers
can help new Americans transition and provides a link to the I'm
Your Neighbor project, which promotes children's literature
featuring new arrivals.
-Booklist
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