CCBC Booklists

CCBC Review:

A Hmong family in St. Paul, Minnesota, copes with grief several months after the death of one of the four children. Everything is quiet in their home and sadness fills all the rooms: “The day she died now existed as a bubble above all the other days on the family’s calendar, a fragile and fierce floating thing, untethered to the earth, well below the clouds but beyond anyone’s reach.” The girl’s bedroom remains just as she had left if on the summer day she drowned, while the two brothers share a bedroom in their three-bedroom house, and their baby sister sleeps in their parents’ room. One “balmy winter day” the mother asks the oldest boy if he’d like to move into his sister’s room. He would. But when he begins to hear his mother’s answers to his questions (Where will I sleep? In your sister’s bed. Where will I put my clothes? In her drawers), he breaks down, shedding tears he’s been holding in for a long time. Still, he helps his mother clean out his sister’s room and falls asleep that night looking out the window, realizing he now has the same view his sister had had for so many years. This beautifully written story provides a remarkable portrait of a particular family’s grief. The illustrations by a Hmong artist include many specific cultural details that will especially resonate with Hmong families. ©2021 Cooperative Children’s Book Center

Illustrated by Xee Reiter

CCBC Age Recommendation: Ages 5-9
Age Range: PreK-Early Elementary (Ages 4-7) Grades 3-5 (Ages 8-10)
Format: Picture book
Subjects: Asian Americans Families Grief and Loss Hmong People Hope and Healing Siblings
Diversity subject: Asian
On CCBC Booklist: Asian in America: Selected Books for PreK-Grade 12 to Support Hmong and Asian American Studies in Wisconsin 

Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Publish Year: 2020
Pages: 32
ISBN: 9781517907945
CCBC Location: Picture Book, Yang

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