Review by Booklist Review
An unnamed New York City boy and Mexico City girl consider what they like best about their present homes as they prepare to trade locales. Both live in apartment buildings, attend school, enjoy sporting events, play at the park, take in museums, and love the beach. Each hopes to find similar activities in their new cities. What makes this simple story work are de Regil's brightly colored mixed-media illustrations. Each spread features a single line of text (applicable to both children) with paired illustrations, one for each child. Cheering loudly for our team to win at the stadium features depictions of the boy and his dad at Yankee Stadium and the girl and her father watching soccer at Estadio Azteca. The sites in each metropolis are further delineated by consistent color schemes: the U.S. scenes feature reds and blues prominently, while the Mexican sites highlight greens and reds. Appended with information about each scene represented, this makes an upbeat and reassuring addition to books about moving.--Kay Weisman Copyright 2019 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-This debut picture book features a boy in New York City who learns he will be relocating to Mexico City, and a girl in Mexico City considering her move to the Big Apple. Both children are unsure about their respective moves, as they will miss many things about their homes. The narrative is structured so that both children share the same thoughts, while the whimsical, detailed watercolor and pencil illustrations show each child enjoying, playing, and exploring their home cities. For instance, when the story reads, "But what if there is nowhere for me to play in my new city?" side-by-side, single-page spreads depict the boy ice-skating in Central Park and the girl riding her bike through Bosque de Chapultepec. Each child thinks, "I hope my life won't be so different in my new city," while the quiet, thoughtful illustrations demonstrate how simultaneously distinctive and similar their homes are. The endpapers offer fun facts about each city alongside compact replicas of the story's individual spreads. VERDICT A positive, reassuring recommendation for families coping with relocating to a new city. Recommended for school and public libraries.-Brianne -Colombo, Fairfield Free Public Library, NJ © Copyright 2019. 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
A boy in New York City learns his family will be moving to Mexico City, while a girl in Cuidad de Mxico learns her family will be relocating to NYC. Each describes (in English) what he or she will miss about home and expresses anxieties about the move: But what if there is nowhere for me to play in my new city? (Curiously, language differences and potential communication difficulties are never mentioned.) The digitally assembled ink, colored-pencil, watercolor, and gouache illustrations mainly place the boys experiences on one side of the spreads and the girls on the other (or, at times, in split-page panels), allowing readers to appreciate the shared nature of their feelings while acknowledging the differences between (and attractions of) their two home cities. This juxtaposition comes to fruition when the children briefly cross pathsand exchange smilesin a busy airport terminal. De Regils reassuring ode to ones beloved home acknowledges both the flaws and vibrancy of the two places and encourages children to be brave and open-minded about moving; the dual narratives of bilateral north-south movement offer readers a unique perspective and challenge the stereotype of a unidirectional flow of migration. An afterword includes thumbnail sketches of each location in the story, with additional historical and cultural context. Concurrently published in Spanish as Un nuevo hogar. julie hakim azzam July/Aug p.105(c) Copyright 2019. 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
A boy from New York and a girl from Mexico City reminisce about the things they love in their hometowns prior to moving to each other's respective cities.After the characters are introduced, the narration unfolds in such a way that it represents the experiences of either child. As the story progresses and the images mirror each other in the spreads, the visual narrative depicts the similar experiences both families have without othering either child. De Regil, in her colored pencil, watercolor, and gouache illustrations, moves from the wide snapshots of either city into close experiences. As both stories merge and progress through the same events (attending sporting and cultural events, playing, traveling to their new homes), the narrative furthers the conversation on the similarities between the protagonists. The stories come together in a sweet moment when they cross paths at the airport, hopeful for the possibilities of different adventures in their new homes. De Regil doesn't shy away from the problems both countries and cultures experience, such as homelessness and wealth inequality, yet does not place blame. The backmatter provides information on both the landmarks the children visitsuch as Lincoln Center, Palacio de Bellas Artes, and the Museo Nacional de Antropologaand the cultures and issues that surround them. The boy presents white, and the girl has brown skin.A heartwarming story that depicts the anxiety of moving and leaving the familiarity of one's own culture behind. (Picture book. 3-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
