The Horn Book Guide

PICTURE BOOKS

Curtis, Jamie Lee

This Is Me: A Story of Who We Are & Where We Came From

40 pp. | Workman | September, 2016 | Trade ISBN 978-0-7611-8011-1 $16.95

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Laura Cornell. An Asian American teacher tells her diverse group of students about the items her immigrant great-grandmother brought to the U.S.; she invites each student to list the objects he or she would pack (and readers are invited to fill a pop-up suitcase at book's end). Curtis's sunny messages about immigration, identity, and familial roots buoy the unremarkable rhymes. Cornell's watercolors are filled with zany details.

Reviewer: Melinda Greenblatt