Laxmi’s journey is both accessible and authentic, and it is a true pleasure to watch her not only embrace her own body, but also teach her classmates how to embrace theirs as well. Debut author Anand skillfully balances humor with sincerity, crafting a narrator who is both vulnerable and powerful, while Ali contributes sunny-humored illustrations that place the appealingly chubby, brown-skinned girl at the center of a diverse classroom headed by a hijabi teacher. Laxmi is still upset, but that night she dreams of tigers, and, appropriately, in the morning she has a whole new attitude-about herself and about her hair. When Laxmi complains about the hair between her eyebrows, her parents compare her to feminist icon Frida Kahlo. Mummy explains that Laxmi comes from generations of women with mooches. At the end of the day, she runs home to her parents, who react to her distress with humor and compassion. At first, Laxmi is mortified-especially when she realizes she doesn’t have fine, dark hairs just on her top lip but all over her whole body. Laxmi is unaware of her mooch until her friends Zoe and Noah point it out during recess. Laxmi, an Indian American elementary school student, has a mooch.Ī mooch, Laxmi explains, is a sprinkling of hairs on her upper lip it’s also the Hindi word for mustache. Beautifully written and illustrated, this striking picture book is the next best thing to being there. Full-color, full-bleed illustrations form a vibrant setting for Ryan’s verse, deftly capturing the vivid hues of the seas, with the dark indigos of deep waters and sheer turquoises of shallower depths.

“I smell the ocean, / the fresh salt wind, wafting lotions / from suntanned skin.” Astrella’s ( The Butterfly Alphabet Book, not reviewed, etc.) acrylic paintings are spectacular. Each appears in boldface as an added reminder for readers. The gentle rhymes are at once descriptive and instructive, offering an almost tangible awareness of the ocean as well as an understanding of each particular sense. Several stanzas of verse, spread out over multiple pages, are dedicated to each sense, each scene focusing on familiar seashore activities of young children: dodging among the waves, constructing sandcastles, savoring the warmth of the sun. Ryan ( Esperanza Rising, 2000, etc.) celebrates the many marvels of the ocean as experienced through a child’s sense of taste, touch, sight, smell, and hearing.

An eloquent tribute to the wonders of the sea, also functioning on a more pragmatic level as an introduction to the five senses.

Hello ocean by pam muñoz ryan