Children's Reviews

Higgins’s mixed-media illustrations reflect a world populated by children diverse in skin tone, ethnicity, religion, and ability, supplemented by the colorful pop of fantasy that goldenrod-hued Penelope and her magenta overalls provide. The text moves nimbly back and forth in time, depicting with equal vividness ancient Persian tales (a jasmine-scented village with saffron fields, courtyards, and fountains), family history (a legendary ancestral doctor), and the challenges of navigating life as an outsider in “a land of concrete and weathermen.” Interspersed with his experiences is the narrator’s accumulated wisdom on a broad range of subjects—cultural differences in bathroom habits, the creation of Persian rugs, the roots of today’s conflicts between Shiites and Sunnis—which help establish Daniel’s identity as a knowledgeable, thoughtful storyteller. A seek-and-find challenge progresses from spotting one object to 10 before reversing direction for a countdown, culminating in “One Golden Rule” (“Do to others as you would have them do to you”) and “one great day at school!” Ranging from spare to busy, the pages incorporate muted and bold colors and mesh Alko’s stylized drawings and an eclectic roundup of collage tidbits, among them admittance tickets, gift tags, and strands of yarn.