Honoring Our Ancestors: Stories and Paintings by Fourteen Artists

A companion of sorts to publisher Rohmer's Just Like Me, this meager volume collects 14 artists' obviously heartfelt and occasionally moving tributes to parents, grandparents and spiritual ancestors. The cultural heritages of the contributors are diverse, including African-American, Chinese, Filipino, Lebanese, Native American and Mexican. Each offers a full-page painting, opposite a personal statement. In the most polished entry, Caryl Henry, describing her grandmother, a cosmetologist who trained at a ""beauty culture"" school established by the first African-American woman millionaire, imagines her grandmother working with hair: ""She fried it, she dyed it, she really combed and styled it!"" The artwork ranges from straightforward portraits to scenes containing a variety of images and symbols, often explained in the accompanying narrative (""I drew the shape of my mother's body using the words `nunca me digas adios,' "" writes Enrique Chagoya. ""That's Spanish for `never tell me good-bye' ""). The artwork is poorly laid out, giving the assemblage the static, uninviting look of a school exercise. The collection may be most effective as a tool for sparking kids' thoughts or drawings of their own families. As most of the artists live in the San Francisco area, the book's greatest appeal is likely to be in that region. Ages 6-up. (Feb.)