Horn Book Review
The story begins on a dark, cold, wet evening. The narrator, a thin, frail-looking child, huddles with her mother in a bombed-out building in a devastated town. After the mother falls asleep, a giant bird appears, to keep the child warm and to prompt her memories of what came before the planes and the bombs. Gradually, the child remembers her father as well as a world of music, dancing, plentiful food, friends, and, most of all, color. As dawn breaks, a rainbow appears, and mother and child, with refreshed spirits, set off on their journey: I know that we will find a way. As the story moves from present to past to present, so the palette of leached-out gray and sepia gradually adds warm oranges and golds and bright reds and purples, then returns to all-gray. Only on the final spread with its rainbow do we see some color in the childs present landscape and situation. Nothing in this narrative is easy. The word hope does not appear. The childs voice is convincing and unsentimental, and some of the simplest details are the most heart-rending. We stand for a moment where there was once a door. But the illustrator mitigates the sadness with compositions in which the child is enclosed by a circle of protection (her mothers arms; the birds wing) or kept company by a cheerful-looking cat. This is an honest, moving book for these times of dislocation, migration, and uncertainty. sarah ellis September/October 2019 p.66(c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
On the eve of losing everything and with danger still ahead, a mother and daughter exhibit the perseverance of the human spirit in wartime.At the beginning of this Norwegian import, a mother and her daughter find a dry place in their roofless and almost wall-less house to sleep. Mama comforts her daughter, the narrator, with the story of a large bird that descends from the mountains as night falls and spreads its wings over their house to protect them from danger. Dark, foreboding illustrations show the protagonists in a state of terror and shock, their city ravaged by war. When the girl wakes up, the bird is there, its head enormous next to her slim body. "Have you forgotten everything? it asks. / / All the wonderful things that were here before." Then, one by one, it reminds the girl of the warm, happy memories that are still inside her, and as they manifest on the page, they gradually lift up her spirit and add color to the book. The girl and mother can leave after she sees "all the colors in the sky," the bird says. What's most important is to "stay together." In Duzakin's soft-edged illustrations, mother and daughter have pale skin and straight, black hair; their home is unspecified, but architectural and decorative details suggest Eastern Europe. The book ends with the mother and child on the move with a few bags, looking at a vista of their shattered town illuminated by a rainbow in the sky and holding each other's hands.A heart-penetrating, heartbreaking book with exceptional mastery in text and illustration. (Picture book. 8-14) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Dystopia or reality? Unfortunately, this boundary is blurred for too many children around the world today. This is a somber story that captures this reality with acute poignancy. A girl and her mother exist in a cold, gray, rubble-filled place where Mama's assurance that soon it will all be over feels hollow. Amid this war-ravaged setting, the girl is visited by a giant bird who urges her to recall happier times. With each memory, the colors return. The power of this story rests in the synergy between text and image. From the darkness of her reality, the girl extracts the peach blush of dawn, the scarlet of a favorite dress, and the purple of a lilac tree. Buildings become whole and a lost friend reappears. But this is no fairy tale, and when the memories fade, so too do the colors and the bird. Nonetheless, the girl and her mother walk among the desolation toward a rainbow an obvious metaphor for hope. Its subtle immigration theme matches that of Wendy Meddour's Lubna and Pebble (2019).--Amina Chaudhri Copyright 2019 Booklist
