The Christmas Promise. Illustrated by David Christiana.
(Blue Sky/Scholastic, 2001).
Awards
Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People
From The Five Owls The Christmas Promise is about more than an out-of-work father's promise to return for his daughter. It is about trust, faith, hope and the generosity of strangers in times of need. The book is also more than a Christmas book--the story might have taken place anytime during the Great Depression. The reader wants to pay attention to the Author's Note, which explains the 1930's hobo culture of riding the rails, eating and sleeping around campfires and the use of hobo signs to communicate, so that Bartoletti's historical portrayal is not mistaken for ways homeless families cope today. Christiana's double-spread illustrations are also more than documentation of the text. They evoke the chaos and transience of the child's existence by portraying it from her own fearful perspective, and often the scenes are incomplete, fractured or one on top of another. Days are dark, buildings are precariously tilted, and railroad bulls and hobo kings loom larger-that-life. Gentle smiles of the girl's young Poppa and wide, good woman who takes her in give the only reasons for the reader to hope, along with a little drawing of two circles touching each other, the hobo sign for "Don't give up." She didn't, and in this well-crafted picture book, we don't either.
Dancing with Dziadziu. Illustrated by Annika Nelson. (Harcourt, 1997).
ISBN 0-15-200675-3 (hardcover) Available in libraries.
- Starred reviews: Booklist, Kirkus
From Kirkus Reviews (Starred review.) Young Gabriella listens to her grandmother's stories of Poland, immigrant life in America, and dancing with her handsome young husband, Dziadziu, in an enchanting, life-affirming story that's as iridescent as the glimmer between life and death. Bartoletti . . . works magic, writing in the voice of the granddaughter and enabling readers to share the sadness of Babci's approaching death . . . and the joy of the premature Easter celebration the bedridden old woman has requested. There is humor in Babci's story of how her family "branded" their coal-camp free-range chickens by painting the birds' feet blue, and satisfaction in Gabriella's realization that--this time--she has performed her snowflake dance exactly right for Babci. This family is lovingly attuned to one another; Gabriella knows when Babci drifts from present to past, from talk to rest. . . . A wonderfully mature story, full of humanity.