A taste of home

As he sets off on a walk through New York City, a boy's mother's request to "bring back a taste of home" raises questions about the meaning of "home." He wanders, unpacking the possibilities. Home is where he is, surrounded by the familiar, yet to his mother, he realizes, home is far away, in the place where she experienced childhood. His perspective gathers nuance as he notices details of his surroundings: a bodega, a market packed with items from the home country his parents knew. He collects a companion on his walk, then begins to connect home with the people he encounters. Ultimately, the message is that home is all those things, both together and separately, over time and place, despite and because of change, as long as the people are in harmony. Vibrant illustrations echo and supplement the text with visual details, setting this story firmly in NYC but leaving it applicable to anywhere people around the globe have made their home. A fresh pop of flavor in the realm of culturally pluralistic literature.

PreS-Gr 1--The Lower East Side of New York City is the setting for this story of a boy who goes out of his apartment one day with the mandate from his mother to "bring back a taste of home." His mother's home is Israel. But while the boy is clear that for him, "home" is his neighborhood, he knows that for many of his neighbors, home is somewhere far away. The text expands and encompasses his neighbors' homes, whose flavors have been captured in the shops, bodegas, and Asian restaurants in the area. A culminating picnic with the diverse population of his community features children and adults with roots that span the globe, and flavors that cover an entire picnic blanket. Illustrations capture the immediate location with ties to distant locales effectively connecting near and far. Notes at the end extend the story for children not familiar with the Lower East Side, but this book will be relatable where cultures and communities continue to mix, no matter where readers live. VERDICT This is a highly effective tool for encouraging children to look into the rich diversity in their communities and realize the many ways immigration adds to the American experience for all who live here.--John Scott

This evocative tour of New York City's Lower East Side celebrates the neighborhood's immigrant cultures. A tan-skinned Jewish child, old enough for an independent outing, walks through the neighborhood toward the many varied food markets. Along the way, he connects with friends of Puerto Rican, Chinese, and Indian descent, and they gather food from each of their cultures. The wistful text juxtaposes the street-level specifics of urban living--a kosher grocery store, a bodega cat, a roast duck hanging in a window--with philosophical musings about the meaning of home. The digital illustrations mirror this effect, as foregrounded exchanges in the Manhattan markets give way to nostalgic backgrounds depicting the children's families' homelands. The postures of the children and their neighbors convey a welcoming warmth, inviting readers--and possibly newcomers--into the markets' small domains. A quirk of the illustrated eyes, however, makes the lighter-skinned characters look overwhelmingly exhausted, a distracting idiosyncrasy that works against the deliberate positivity of the text. Backmatter provides brief context for each of the Lower East Side cultures depicted in the book, and maps on the endpapers hint at further foods and cultures around the corner. Though the text acknowledges changes over time, it doesn't mention gentrification, which threatens the robustness of all these neighborhood microcosms. A rose-colored homage to the power of food to build community in a Manhattan melting pot. (author's and illustrator's notes) (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.