The Remembering Stone

This is a particularly difficult book to review. This is not to say that "The Remembering Stone" is badly written or poorly illustrated. It isn't. This is also not to say that the book's plot is dull or that the characters aren't well-delineated. Quite frankly, this title is a beautiful addition to any library, personal or public, anywhere. That's just the problem. While there isn't anything wrong with the book there isn't anything overwhelmingly right about it either. It's beautiful to look at and has a sweet little story, that's for certain. It's just difficult to write a review of something that's so quietly nice. Mama remembers Costa Rica. To her, it is still home. Though she and her daughter Ana live in a large city in the United States, Mama still dreams of someday returning to visit her family in South America. Ana understands this dream. Throughout the day she and her best friend Sophia have gone about their neighborhood learning about the hopes and wishes of their neighbors. That night, Ana takes a stone her Mama brought with her from Costa Rica and dreams that she is a red-winged blackbird making her way to that distant land. She visits with the family, sees how beautiful the land is, and then wakes up in the morning thinking, "I will wish for luck, work hard, and hold hope inside, till my dream comes true". See? Quietly nice. The story here is a perfect companion to any child of immigrant parents living in America and hoping to see distant relatives once again. Russell offers a fairly mature vision of dreams and what happens to them when they are deferred. Ana's Mama's boss is a [...] old man who scoffs at dreams and dreaming. Ana is quick to see how this leaves him without hope or happiness, a fate she would like to avoid. Claire B. Cotts' illustrations compliment the quiet dignity of the book perfectly. Some picture, such as the shot of Ana lying on the bed with the stone in her hand, are gorgeous without ever becoming gaudy. Colors are muted, but are bright in splotches, especially when Ana visits Costa Rica in her mind. The book brings to mind other mother/daughter urban picture book titles, like Vera B. Williams', "A Chair For My Mother". For some families this book will become a beloved title, carried close to the heart for generations. For others, it is a nice if not particularly memorable journey. To my mind, "The Remembering Stone" fills a need and does so in a soft imaginative way. Lovely and touching.

What can an immigrant do to make the American dream come true? In this wistul yet hopeful vignette, Barbara Timberlake Russell articulates the newcomer's game plan -- "wish for luck, work hard, and hold hope inside." The muted colors in Claire Cotts' lovely paintings, full of wind and movement, echo the feelings of change, loneliness, and longing articulated in the text. Ana, a girl who dreams of traveling to visit her grandparents in Costa Rica, is nonetheless carving out a new community for herself in the neighborhood. The urban setting made up of immigrants from various countries demonstrates the commonality of newcomers in the "land of opportunity," and yet also reveals their isolated pursuit of hopes and dreams.