A Map into the World

It's summer, and young Paj Ntaub and her family have just moved into "the green house" when she spies an elderly white couple through her window. These neighbors--Bob and Ruth--routinely sit outside on their "special bench." They assume their perch throughout autumn, but come winter they stay indoors. One morning Paj Ntaub notices cars parked in front of the couple's house, and her father tells her that Ruth has died.

When spring arrives, Paj Ntaub sees Bob sitting alone on the bench. Paj Ntaub has an idea. With Bob's permission, she does a chalk drawing in his driveway: "I started my picture with a teardrop./ And then I made it splatter like sunshine." She festoons the asphalt with neighborhood sights--gingko leaf, worm--and tells Bob that she has created "a map into the world. Just in case you need it."

Kao Kalia Yang, author of the much-praised adult titles The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir and The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father, has written a quietly uplifting picture book. A Map into the World suggests that when a family's equilibrium is upset (by a death, by a move), the neighborhood family (in all its ethnic variety) can help restore it. Illustrator Seo Kim realizes the book's largely outdoor setting: she individuates the veins on leaves; tree bark is invitingly ridged. In a breathtaking touch, Paj Ntaub's Hmong grandmother's "special story cloth"--too small for readers to appreciate as it appears within the story--fills the book's endpapers. --Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author

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