Home Is a Wish

A young protagonist reflects on time away (an ordinary day’s rhythm, a short trip with Mama, a longer trip with Amah), noting that “we always come back home.” Then a moving van appears. The East Asian–cued family packs up their possessions, flies through sunset-hued skies, and drives at night to a new city. From a balcony overlooking the metropolitan bustle, the child wonders, “How can this be our home?” Avian motifs echo the narrative theme—side panels depict an adult tern guarding an egg and feeding a young chick, and terns also accompany the family’s plane through the sky. Kuo’s vivid color shifts—shadowy blues giving way to bright blue skies—herald the child’s gradual acceptance of a new home in this pensive tale of relocation that centers the melancholy as well as the optimism of change. Background characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 3–6. (Feb.)