This is a delightful book. Simple in message and lovely in design, the story is told in the first person by a boy named Dylan. He is talking about a new student, Shu Lin. She seemed quite different at first. She did not speak English well, ate different looking food, and kept to herself. The story turns on Dylan’s reflection of how he felt when he was the new kid at school. His friend, Barney is the first to ask ” What’s up with her?” When her grandfather comes to school to show the class his painting, Barney is very skeptical: ” What’s the point if he can’t even speak English?” But the whole class is silent when grandfather’s painting is rolled out to reveal a large Chinese Landscape with a beautiful dragon floating in the clouds. In the center of the book is a fold out of this painting. The reader can get a sense of the awe the kids in the class must have felt looking at the painting. Later, the children are trying their hand at a large landscape painting. When Dylan and Barney start struggling to paint, Shu Lin shows them how to hold the brush and paint the dragon’s scales. They love it and Barney says “Nice one, Shu Lin.”

The illustrations are light and whimsical and the expressions on the children’ faces delightful. The style references Chinese scroll paintings, though also seem very modern and fresh. The book doesn’t get too preachy or dwell on the empathy that Dylan feels for Shu Lin as a new student. Rather it describes the dream Dylan had the night after Shu Lin’s grandfather came to school: “That night, lying in bed, I closed my eyes and heard wind chimes in bamboo forests. I watched thin smoke wisps melt into the stars, and somewhere, deep in the distance of my dreams, I fire-danced with dragons.” In doing this, the writer goes right to the heart of what can happen to us when we open ourselves up to people and worlds very different than our own. I think this book would be a lovely addition to any children’s library and especially lovely for kindergarteners or first graders encountering differences for the first time.

Reviewed by Kathy Bain, Charlotte Hobbs Memorial Library