Hope Lim

A young girl walks her puppy everyday, and notices a friendly-looking woman on her street who is always sitting at an open window in her house, looking out, and writing. They begin to exchange greetings, but one day, the woman moves away, and her house is for sale. The girl asks her mom if they can go look inside it, and she sees her former neighbor’s window from the inside for the first time. She loves all the sun and light and the sweeping view of their block.

When they get back home, show more she asks her mom if they could open the curtains and the big window in their own house. She sees all that she had been missing, and sits at the window and begins to write, like her former neighbor. The final panel shows a young boy studying a drawing that she made and sent to him.

Delicate and airy ink and watercolor illustrations by Qin Leng reminded me a bit of Ludwig Bemelman, who also used ink and watercolor for his Madeline books. The neighborhood is depicted as appealing on different levels, with the artwork helping to show why looking at the world from a different perspective can impart an entirely different view of reality.

Readers aged 3 and over will be charmed by this simple story and its message. show less

“I fly like a bird on Daddy’s bike,” the narrator joyfully croons as we watch father and daughter whizz through a coastal, colored-penciled town. “CA-CAW!” she calls, and “the birds sing back.” We smell the sea air and feel the salty breeze. Suddenly she spies “a woman with a blue coat and a big bag … walking very fast,” and clutches her dad’s sweatshirt, as gouache graffiti demons appear on a wall and a graphite shadow joins the gray-haired figure like an evil twin. show more Yet there she is one day in the park, “whispering a song to the birds!” Lim’s text and Yum’s art soar as the two “see” each other at last. show less

Lovely and universal, and relevant to all ages. What makes a home? Can you find something to cherish when your memory doesn't match the new reality? The story addresses these and related questions elegantly and concisely.

It also has nothing to say about poverty, refugees, assimilation... which is a good thing. We have lots of wonderful picture-books about the challenges of 'the immigrant experience' but not enough that focus on simple & joyful experiences.

I'm not sure if this is about immigration or adoption. But it's also about grief and healing.

And about neighbors who don't know how to raise their children to be brave enough to get a scraped arm w/out causing a fuss; a downed tree is important, and so is courage, and so is imagination.

Also, you can't just go out and buy a replacement for someone you've lost. Now, the book doesn't actually say that, and in fact there is information 'between the lines' that indicates that it was the child's show more idea, after a period of grief for the old tree, to get a"young" (not new) tree.

Nice book but just not quite all it could have been and wanted to be. show less