Review by Booklist Review
Ages 3-7. In the latest gentle book about the Japanese kitten Yoko, Wells shows and tells a story of origami. With her loving grandmother Obaasan, Yoko feeds the cranes in the garden. She's sad when they fly away each year, but Obaasan assures her that the birds will come back. Grandfather Ojiisan teaches Yoko to fold paper cranes and make other animals with his beautiful colored papers. When Yoko grows up and moves to California, she makes paper cranes and sends them in a package across the sea for Obaasan's birthday. The clear, lovely pictures draw on many styles of Japanese illustration and combine origami, gold leaf, rubber stamps, and paint, contrasting the wild, free-flying birds with small, framed, cozy indoor scenes of family. Children will enjoy the intricate details of the cut-paper animals as much as the double-page spread of the ship on the waves with Yoko waving goodbye. This is an immigration story, too. Like the child in Naomi Shihab Nye's Sitti's Secrets (1994), Yoko feels close to family far away. --Hazel Rochman
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Wells returns to the plucky heroine she introduced in Yoko with this wistful story about the green-eyed kitten and her far-away grandparents. Yoko writes weekly to Japan to her beloved grandmother, Obaasan, whose garden is visited each year by migrating cranes. Yoko's grandfather, Ojiisan, inspired by the winged visitors, showed his granddaughter how to fold cranes out of paper. When Obaasan's birthday approaches and Yoko doesn't have the money to buy her a present, she sends her some origami cranes, folded just as Ojiisan had taught her. Wells differentiates between the two homelands in palette and artistic style. She dresses the endearing grandparents in autumnal-hued kimonos cut out of silk-screened paper against backgrounds of woodblock-style ocean waves and wind-blown pines. Yoko, meanwhile, sports flowered patterns and spring-inspired colors; Wells outlines the heroine's vignettes in plaid frames. The boxed collages form the main images but, in traditional Japanese style, their borders are porous: leaves fall and cranes fly out into the white margins; Yoko's posted letters and origami diagrams prance across the bottom of the pages. "Soon I will come back to Japan, just like the cranes," Yoko's birthday greeting says, and while the book doesn't portray her return, youngsters will know that, no matter how far away their grandparents may be, their love will find them. Ages 3-7. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-This much-anticipated follow-up to Yoko (Hyperion, 1998) focuses on the beloved kitten's connection to the grandparents that she and her parents left behind in Japan when they relocated to the United States. The story begins by recounting the treasured hours she spent in the garden with Obaasan, her grandmother, feeding the cranes. Little Yoko learns that the cranes stay only a few months in the garden. The disappointment that she feels at the birds' seasonal departure is mitigated somewhat by the origami cranes and other creatures that Ojiisan, her grandfather, teaches her to make. This backward glance continues by revisiting Yoko and her parents' eventual departure from Japan. Once in America, the child corresponds weekly via letters and then on Obaasan's birthday, sends a special present of three lovingly folded origami cranes and the promise that soon she will return to visit them-just like the cranes. This touching intergenerational story is told with a beautiful economy of language that echoes the simplicity valued in both Japanese art and culture. The stunning artwork is a marvelous pastiche created by the use of origami and washi papers, gold leaf, rubber stamps, and paint. Recognizable motifs from traditional Japanese art are found throughout the visual narrative. A perfect gem.-Rosalyn Pierini, San Luis Obispo City-County Library, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Lushly illustrated with a variety of techniques adapted from Japanese painting and origami designs, this is the story of Yoko, a little Japanese girl cat going to America and leaving her beloved grandparents behind. Yoko finds a way to help her grandmother celebrate her birthday by making paper cranes and mailing them to Japan. Wells invests her cat characters with dignity and charm. From HORN BOOK Spring 2002, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Origami cranes take metaphoric flight from West to East in this tale of Yoko the kitten's earnest efforts to maintain a connection to her grandparents in Japan. Yoko's Obaasan (grandmother) loves the cranes that inhabit her pond in the summer, and her Ojiisan (grandfather) teaches her how to fold paper to make cranes. When Yoko, now removed to the US, needs to send her Obaasan a birthday gift in winter, she sends three origami cranes and a promise that she, too, will soon "come back to Japan, just like the cranes." Wells's (Bunny Party, above, etc.) illustrations are utterly gorgeous, incorporating gold leaf and decorated Japanese papers into her trademark paintings of cuddly animals. The scenes in Japan show a distinct Japanese influence, with gloriously foamy, sculptural waves rising out of the ocean. One inspired double-page spread depicts the mail plane winging its way from a pastel California (iconographically identified by skyscrapers, orange groves, palm trees, and a parking lot) to a deliciously snowy Japan, shown simply as a snowy mountain and curling wave towering over a small wooden house on its own island. Given the stunning illustrations, it's a shame that the story doesn't hold its own. Well-meaning and earnest, it lacks entirely the humor and warmth of its predecessor, and there is little beauty of language to compensate for the humdrum narrative. Perhaps this can be partly explained by an attempt to emulate the austere Japanese text forms as well as illustration, but even if this is the case, the text as a whole falls depressingly flat. Still, Yoko's fans will be pleased to see a new story, and may be so dazzled by the illustrations that they will not notice the weaknesses. (Picture book. 3-7)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
