Laundry Day

by Maurie J. Manning

In a picture book that blends realism and fantasy, a shoeshine boy is surprised when a piece of red silk falls from the sky. Trying to find its owner, he ventures up and down fire escapes, back and forth across clotheslines, and into the company of the colorfully diverse people who live in the tenement. Lively pages laid out in multiple panels, with a few words of text in dialogue balloons, capture the exhilarating action, and foreign language phrases are translated on the endpapers. There is a cheerful side to a neighborhood packed with people of different origins—the opportunity to make friends across race lines, culture lines, and clotheslines!

Genres: Picture Books, Historical Fiction, Graphic Novels, Childrens, Cultural, Storytime, Mystery

40 pages, Hardcover

First published April 17, 2012

About the author

Maurie J. Manning is the author and illustrator of Kitchen Dance, a beloved read-aloud and "small moments" teaching tool, and Laundry Day, a graphic novel-style celebration of immigrant culture in 1900's NYC. Both were published by Clarion Books and earned multiple starred reviews from The Horn Book, Kirkus, and Publishers Weekly. Her work also includes text collaboration and the illustrations for the Gallup Press bestseller How Full Is Your Bucket? For Kids, which has sold over 400,000 copies and remains a staple for school-year kickoffs nationwide. She is still writing picture books, but has taken a fun detour into writing YA Speculative Horror, recently completing an 85K word novel.

As a single mother, she adopted two older multi-racial children. Now grown, the things they have taught her about privilege, representation, and resilience in the face of trauma reflect heavily on all of the stories she creates.

A longtime board member of the Picture Book Artists Association, Maurie lives in California's Central Valley with too many pets.

Reviews

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young shoe shine boy isn't having much luck finding customers. His day turns around when he finds a red scarf that falls from the laundry line, and meets a variety of interesting people when he tries to find it's owner.

~*~*~*~*~*~

I thought this book was neat. The illustrations are very nice, and I enjoyed the story (told in a comic format).

It might be a little slow for some readers, but I enjoyed seeing all the different people the boy met as he went up the apartment building. It's easy to imagine the setting as turn of the century New York or some place similar, though even in such a setting as that I'm not sure how believable it would be to have such a diverse cast of characters all in one building.

I thought the glossary was a nice touch, as there were several words I didn't recognize in the text, and I always enjoy little 'trivia' bits like that.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't help but smile as I read this charming (fictional) story of a young shoeshine boy in early 1900s New York City who is distracted from his not-so-booming business by a bright red scarf that flutters down to him. The boy looks up to see laundry lines webbed across the apartment buildings above him; him kindly resolves to find the owner and, along with his (very cute) orange cat companion, climbs up and onto balconies to check. What follows is a none-too-subtle multicultural extravaganza as the tenement residents have all come from a variety of countries from Poland to Ireland to Jamaica. This could have felt a bit forced, but I feel it comes together well given the setting and style of the story and shows a lovely and warm view of the immigrant experience (while still including a few realistic elements, like all the people in the small rooms, dealing with crying babies, and the like). The story is told primarily through the adorable illustrations. Recommended.

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this one.

I illustrations are wonderful, so intricate with so much to view, and they do much of the job of telling the story. I loved their many details.

I enjoyed all the different people the young boy meets. It really shows the melting pot of NYC in earlier times. I particularly appreciated how here a good deed does get rewarded.

I found this story uplifting and interesting, and its vibrant pictures really make it. The humor is wonderful. I was especially amused by the young sisters and the pages toward the end. Most of the people touched my heart.

This is fun historical fiction, and a terrific friendship story and immigration story, and NYC story.

And, there is the most adorable orange cat!

4 ½ stars

ETA: I was appreciative of the short glossary of words & phrases that's at the end of the book.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

The streets of turn-of-the-century New York City can be cold, lonely, and boring for a young shoeshine boy and his cat. When a red piece of cloth floats down from the sky, he decides to find its owner. As he makes his way from one apartment to the next, standing on boxes, shimmying up drainpipoes, using the fire escape, and crossing the clotheslines, he encounters several neighbors from different countries, all of whom are friendly and send him on to someone else. Some of them even offer him food or a coin. When he finally finds the owner, she gives him a special gift once he's back on the street shining shoes. The digital pencil, watercolor, and pastel illustrations are filled with soft colors--except for that red cloth--and busy city streets filled with pedestrians and horses carrying carts filled with merchandise. Because the illustrations are set up in panels, they resemble the pages of a comic book. I like how diverse the neighborhood seems, and while it's unlikely that the boy could walk over the clothesline across an alley or that all the individuals he encounters could speak English so well, the cultural richness of the area is just as clear as the message that good deeds do not go unrewarded. "A Laundry List of Words to Know" provides short definitions and a pronunciation guide for some of the vocabulary readers have encountered. This is another imaginative, life-filled title by the author of Kitchen Dance.

[Jackie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The illustrations are wonderful in this book about a little boy who finds a a scarf and his efforts to return it to whoever lost it. This would be a fun read-aloud book because of all the various dialects that come into play in the neighborhood.

[Villain E · Rating 4 out of 5]

In old-timey New York, a boy climbs fire escapes and clotheslines to return a shawl, which has fallen from somewhere up above. The boy interacts with the diverse population while trying to find the owner. I like the cartoony artwork. As a kid I loved climbing. As a parent, this makes me nervous.

[Joanna Marple · Rating 5 out of 5]

This picture book opens with a warm, busy double-paged spread of a New York street set in, I would guess, the early years on the 20th century. Horse-drawn delivery carts and market stalls fill the street, which is flanked by tall tenement buildings. Our young protagonist, a shoe-shine lad and his ginger cat, is emphasized simply by the artist creating a little more space around them than the other New Yorkers.

The shoe shine trade is slow this day, and the lad spots a pigeon overhead with a strip of red cloth. We pan over into two more exquisite wordless double-pages spreads looking upward to the laundry drying out on the washing lines blowing between the apartment blocks. Our kindhearted boy climbs up to the first floor chinese laundry balcony to try and find the cloth's owner.

On this bustling, busy bad-business day, this lad turns everything around as he climbs higher and higher in search of the owner of this red scarf, and helping out individuals along the way. Typical of New York, each person he asks belongs to a different linguistic/cultural community and the simple, but charming, text is scattered with colloquial expressions. The endpapers include translations for each of these words/phrases!

"Lady is this your baby's blanket?"

"How beautiful! the same color as the embroidery on my rushnyk. But it's not mine. Try Mr Travelini, the organ grinder, one flight up."

Why I like this book:

This graphic/comic style (in Candy Round font) with text in balloons will appeal to young and older children, especially boys. It is a very visual tale and needs to be seen as well as read/listened to, and is so obviously from an author/illustrator. The illustrations are in digital pencil, watercolor and pastel and kind of remind me of Dickensian-with-a-smile scenes. There is a real feel-good, community-spririt taste to the book, which makes you want to look out for doing a good turn for someone today! There are some beautiful historical details worth looking for as well as the ginger cat and pigeon tucked into each page!

The people and pages are colorfully diverse and I immediately wanted to go back and reread Laundry Day when I finished it the first time! On a side note, Naples' (Italy) streets still hang laundry like this Possibly a Caldecott contender?

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

When a young shoeshine boy and his cat decide to reunite a beautiful red cloth with its owner, they unknowingly embark on an adventure that promises to ease his loneliness.Who would have thought this simple piece of cloth could be so versatile? It becomes an apron, a blanket, a zipline, a food procurement device, a headscarf, and a marketing tool. This is a testament to the imaginations of children as well as the multitude of ideas that come with a diverse population.

The urban adventure of this young boy and his feline companion are reminiscent of Peter Sis' Madlenka, complete with unique views of the city and welcoming, multilingual neighbours. However, the vibrancy of the illustrations and the meddling of a well-intentioned neighbour push Laundry Day to a higher level.

Manning's previous book, Kitchen Dance, was a tribute to the joie-de-vivre of a passionate family who loved to dance. She has brought the same depth of feeling and sense of movement to Laundry Day, with a great deal of historical flavour as well.

Laundry Day is a vibrant addition to Maurie J. Manning's excellent portfolio of books. The intrepid hero's adventure through a diverse neighbourhood shows a young man of excellent moral character who is rewarded for his thoughtfulness. It celebrates diversity, imagination, and honesty in a format that calls for kids to love it. MadlenkaKitchen Dance

This is an excerpt of the original review posted at http://www.perogiesandgyoza.com/2012/....

[Tasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young boy tries to sell shoe shines on the streets of New York City in a time before cars, when the streets are crowded with horses and carts. Suddenly, a red cloth drifts down from above. The boy looks up to see rows and rows of laundry drying above the street, so he starts to climb with the red cloth around his neck and his small cat following behind. As he searches for the owner, he meets people from all over the world. There is the Chinese woman who offers him a mooncake after he helps fold some laundry. A Ukranian woman with a wailing baby suggests he check with the Italian organ grinder who lives above her. A family of Polish little girls try to get him involved in their games. When he finally finds the owner, he has traveled the world in just a few buildings, sharing in treats, hearing a few words of their language. His high-wire antics add a little spice to the story and a wonderful play off of old films. This is an old-fashioned treat of a picture book.

Read the rest of my review on my blog, Waking Brain Cells.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young shoeshine boy wanders through the bustling streets of turn-of-the-century New York City. Disheartened when no one wants a shine, the little boy slumps down on the sidewalk. A piece of red cloth floats down from the sky landing on his shoulders immediately lifting his spirits as well as his curiosity. Peering up at the many lines of laundry strung between the buildings he decides to go in search of the owner of the beautiful red fabric. As he climbs the fire-escapes he asks all he encounters if they are the owners of the cloth. Each person he visits represents a different culture, age and occupation. When he reaches the top of the building and discovers where the red scarf came from he is in for a pleasant surprise, and a reward. This beautiful picture book depicts the melting-pot community that helped make New York City what it is today. The layout of the book is very appealing as well: some pages are in panels like a graphic novel, others are wordless, telling the story just with the illustrations and the perspectives drawn show literally every angle of the street possible. It would be great to see this title on the Caldecott list next year!

[Dolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an entertaining tale that takes us upward in the streets of New York City in the early 1900s. The story is framed by the different ethnic and racial backgrounds of the neighbors the little boy encounters. We enjoyed playing detective and figuring out each's heritage based on the clues.

I suppose that criticism can be leveled against the stereotypical characterizations, but I considered them more as honoring the cultural identity of each nation and a commentary as to the melting pot type of community the boy lived in, especially in that time in history.

The illustrations are nicely detailed and really help to tell the story. I was horrified to see the young boy cavorting across laundry lines numerous stories above the ground in peril of falling to his death, but of course, he is never truly in danger in this tale. We really enjoyed reading this book together.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young boy finds a long red cloth and sets out to discover which neighbor it belongs to. He climbs up the fire escape, asking his multi-cultural neighbors if they know about the red cloth. They give him a variety of delicious treats and suggest he check with the other neighbors. A sweet and fun introduction to neighbors from all over the world, with a lovely graphic novel form.

Recommended as a good introduction to graphic novels for students in grades 1 - 2. Also a good text to use with lower elementary students learning about immigration.

[Edward Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The adventurous lengths a young boy goes to to return a found strip of red cloth in a New York City tenement neighborhood full of immigrants. Who knew cats like matzoh ball soup?

[Kris Dersch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like this. It reminded me of the 1990s Disney movie Newsies with the shoeshine boy and old time New York setting. I think it may require a bit of guidance from the adult to help young readers, but the journey and the characters are charming and the glossary in the back defining the words he hears from his multilingual neighbors make this a delightful read for a variety of ages.

[June · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is good probably more of a 3.5. I just am not a graphic novel person, plus the boy walking across clothes lines just threw my out of the story.

However, I would definitely hand it out to the teachers who are always asking for laundry books for there home life unit.

[Jessica Riojas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laundry Day – Graphic novel
This book is about the journey a shoeshine boy goes on in order to return a bright red scarf-like cloth to its rightful owner.

Text to self: This story reminds me of what it’s like on my own laundry day when I find a missing sock. The boy in the story goes from person to person to try and find the owner of the cloth he finds. I don’t go from person to person to find a missing sock, because I know who owns all of the socks, but I do go through all of the clothes that the socks were washed with and search them. I search the shirt sleeves and pant legs and turn things inside out. It becomes a quest, just like in the story, but perhaps a lot less noble.

Text to text: This story reminds me of I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen. The boy goes from person to person trying to find the owner of the red cloth, yet every time he is told “no” and to check the next person. The bear in I Want My Hat Back goes from animal to animal looking for his hat, is told “no,” and to check the next animal. Still, I think that this boy’s quest was more noble. He was trying to help someone else whereas the bear was only trying to help himself.

Text to world: Often times we can feel lost in the world, overlooked, like the little boy at the beginning of the story when no one came to his shoeshine stand. Sometimes this can be remedied by merely looking back at the world in small pieces. Don’t look at yourself compared to a huge place, and let it intimidate you, step forward and take it in pieces. Through the boy’s quest, he went from feeling tiny and lost in his neighborhood to meeting several people around him one on one. When he was done and he went back to his shoeshine job, he felt more at home. Instead of feeling small compared to the whole neighborhood, he felt more like he was on a street amongst people who he knew and who he could call his friends. Sometimes that can happen to us, too. When we’re new to a place with a lot of people, we first feel lost in the numbers. Then, as we meet people and make friends, suddenly that feeling of being lost melts away and we feel at home with the people we know.

[Bradley Clay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laundry Day by Maurie J. Manning is a graphic novel about a boy who is a shoeshine boy who finds a red scarf. The boy searched all over town looking for the owner of the scarf. When he is looking for the owner of the scarf he comes across a lot of diverse people who he becomes friends with. After the owner realizes how much time this boy spent looking for her to return the scarf. She decides to snip the scarf in half and give the boy one half. The lonely shoes shine boy is no longer lonely due to all the friends he made while looking for the owner of the scarf.
Text to Self: This story reminds me of when I was a kid. When I found something I always wanted to get the item back to the original owner. There were a lot of times I was not able to search for the person who owned the item, so I always made sure it was placed in the lost and found. I actually made a friend once when he left his jacket at the park. He had written his name and address in the jacket so we were able to return the jacket to him. The next time we saw each other in the park we played together and became great friends.
Text to Text: This book reminds me of a book I read to my son. It is called Little Blue Truck. The Little Blue Truck has a lot of friends and is very nice to them. However the dump truck has big important things to do and doesn’t have time to slow down for the animals. He doesn’t have very many friends in this area since he is to important and doesn’t have time for them. Then he gets stuck in the mud and the Little Blue Truck and the animals help him get out of the mud. Once they get Little Blue Truck and Dump out of the mud, Dump says “you helped me and they helped you.” Then he goes on to say that now he see a lot depends on a helping hand from a few good friends.
Text to World: What I pulled from the book the most to connect to the world is how one good dead a person can do can change there life. The lonely boy is no longer lonely after he tried returning the scarf to the owner, he made lots of friends of many diversity’s.

[Alicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

1. I thought the pictures and panels in this primary leveled graphic novel were extremely well done! In some respects this book almost reminded me of a wordless picture book because several of the panels did not have any dialogue with the characters. The panels were very simple to follow and could be read in the typical left to right fashion. It was interesting to watch how each page followed a new character the boy met and how the smaller wordless panels on the page typically showed him helping the person in some way before moving onto somebody else in order to find the owner of the red cloth.

2. This book would be great for a teacher to use in the classroom with grades K-2. Even kindergartners would have little trouble with the book and be engaged because the dialogue is very simple and repetitive. I think a teacher could use this book in order to have students practice their prediction skills. It is also a story that could be that reflects a generic multicultural book that could be a springboard into a multicultural unit of some type. Each time the child meets somebody that is new, they are from a different culture and the way that they would use the cloth he has reflects a little bit about their culture. Students would learn a phrase from that culture as well when reading the book. Another great way to use this story would be to have students practice finding the cause and effect of different events.

3. I have only positive things to say about this book. All of the multicultural aspects of the book have a positive spin on the culture. The book is not overwhelming with pictures or dialogue and all of the pages would be appropriate for any age-level. The illustrations are absolutely stunning and I can see that any child would easily get drawn into the story! There is one caution I have for teachers. Students may not be familiar with the time period that this book takes place and would need to have a discussion with someone about shoe shining as a job and what life was like at the turn of the 20th century.

[Mama Bibliosoph · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first came across Laundry Day when I was looking for wordless picture books to read to my son Harry. Most of the panels in this graphic novel-style book don't have text. Books without many words are useful for kids who script because the words you use change each time you read it, and this helps prevent a child from reciting memorized lines rather than engaging with the story.

There are a lot of ways to approach talking about American immigration. But I think one value to a historical approach is that it sets up a foundation for understanding that this country is almost completely comprised of people whose families originally came from elsewhere. It doesn't appear anywhere in the text, but I am using this book to introduce the word "immigrant."

One cautionary note is that the multi-panel graphic novel style is fabulous for developing sequencing and storytelling skills, but it can also be overwhelming visually for some children. This was the case for my son Luke, who had a much harder time attending to this book. I had some success using goal-oriented scanning ("Where is the cat?") as a way to help him focus. I also found that being careful to emphasize the repetitive plot structure, helped him find his place in the kaleidoscope of images.

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I review books for children from the perspective of a parent of kids with autism. The review above is from a longer blog post about books that are good for introducing race and ethnicity to kids with autism: http://www.lineupthebooks.com/10-book...

[Haley Altizer]

Laundry Day, written by Maurie J. Manning tells the story of a young shoe shiner who one day finds a red blanket. When the young shoe shiner discovers the red blanket he then wanders all over the town trying to find out who’s it is. When reading this story I came to the moral that “finder keepers” isn’t always the case. Sometimes the item might mean a lot to that someone and they would really appreciate having back their lost item. In this particular case it is a good thing that the blanket was returned. The red blanket was Miss Fajah’s headscarf. The young shoe shiner ended up getting a reward for returning her headscarf, it was half of the red headscarf.
This particular book is set up as a comic. Therefore, the page is covered with illustrations. The pictures are colored with pastel colors. The pastel colors are presented through watercolor painting. The actual pictures however look as though they were drawn. I feel like the illustrator couldn’t have done any better than was presented.
The words in this book made me feel as though I was reading in a British accent. In order to express certain things the author used similes. The cool thing about this book was that as you went through each page there was at least one different language. This represented the diversity in which lived in the town. In the back of the book the author has translated what each saying meant.

[Jeannene Egan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laundry Day by Maurie J. Manning is a graphic novel. A young boy who shines shoes finds a red scarf and goes all over his town to return it. Each person he asks replies in a different language about what the scarf is called. I enjoyed the different languages being brought up in this book.
Text to self – This reminds me of a time in my life when I was at work. There was a work shirt under the counter where the cashiers kept their items. No one knew who it belonged to. Every day I would ask the cashiers is this your or do you know who’s this is. The difference is in Laundry Day the boy returned the scarf to the person it belonged to. At my work we never figured out who the shirt belonged to.
Text to world - I would relate this to the world because of the foreign languages that are spoken when the red scarf in the story is being talked about. Each person that the boy asked about the red scarf replied by calling the scarf something in their language. The town in the story has all these people from different countries like America “the melting pot”.
Text to text – I would relate this book to Luke on The Loose the other graphic novel that I read. In both stories there is a boy running around town on some sort of journey they want to accomplish.

[ME · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laundry Day is a Graphic Novel about a lonely shoe-shine boy who finds a red scarf and makes many diverse friends while trying to find the owner of the scarf. When the grateful owner of the scarf sees how much time and trouble the boy has spent finding her, she snips the scarf in two. A bird brings him back half the scarf. Searching for the owner, the boy has made many friends and he isn’t lonely anymore.

Text to Self- I was a lonely, shy child exacerbated by the fact that I was also an Army brat. We moved around and friendships were hard to establish.

Text to Text- Solitude can be a revitalizing event. And the book that comes to mind is called Migrations to Solitude by Sue Halpern. Although solitude is sometime a necessary part of one’s life, this book describes how wonderful solitude can be, but also, how we need companionship to survive.

Text to World- I read an article about a study that proved socialization amongst the elderly can lower the levels of cognitive decline. In other words, it is necessary to have friends and challenge the brain by trying new things and going different places.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

This graphic novel is a story about a young shoe shiner working on the streets of New York during the early 1900's. However, the young boy experiencing a rather uneventful day associated with little to no business, is taken off guard when a red scarf mysteriously lands before him. The rest of the book follows his adventure as he encounters many different and unique people in order to find and return the scarf to its original owner. Maurie J. Manning is able to appropriately and expertly capture the events of his journey through chronological comic strips. This in turn encourages exploration of the eyes of the reader from scene to scene, allowing a more visual understanding of the events unfolding rather than a direct telling of the story. Great for young readers, this story incorporates ideas such as honesty, diversity, and perseverance while keeping the tone light hearted and rewarding. This book also explores, different languages while remaining simple and fun for new readers beginning to discover different types of literature.

[Jacob]

Laundry Day is a graphic novel by Maurie J. Manning. I would recommenced this graphic novel for children between kindergarten and 2nd grade. This is because it doesn't have many words and is very illustration focused. This book follow the journey of a boy as he tries to find the owner of a red scarf. It is really interesting and features fun characters and an interesting bi-lingual element. A text connection I made is to Rain Reign by Ann Martin. Both involve elements of searching for the owners of something, a scarf and dog respectively. A text to self connection that I can make is that when I was young I had a favorite scarf that happened to be red too. Even more interesting, I lost the scarf and wish that someone would have gone on an adventure to bring it back to me. This book has many real world connections. Most of all I appreciated the cultural aspects of this book. This book features many different characters of many different races. The main character makes friends with them as the story goes and I believe this could be a good cultural acceptance lesson for students.

[Joella · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little shoe shining boy who doesn't get much business finds a bit of red cloth that has fallen down from the laundry hanging to dry between two big buildings. He stops what he is doing and takes the time to climb up and ask various families if they have lost the red cloth when they hung their clothes out for laundry day. Each responds no, even though the cloth is very nice. When the boy gets to the top of the building he finds out who it belongs to. Then readers get the surprise of discovering why it was "dropped."

This is a fun book that is a picture book with panel illustrations that would be a nice stepping stone for young readers who are interested in graphic novels. Plus it is just a great story.

[Taylor Jonas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very cute and showed a story of a little boy looking for the owner of a red scarf. The genre for this book is realistic fiction. The target audience would be 1st grade or kindergarten. A connection to this book to self is when find something that someone has lost I will try my best to find the owner of it. A connection text to world is that more people should try to locate the rightful owner to a lost item. Now a days if you leave your phone or wallet and turn our back there is a good chance it'll be gone. My connection for text to text is Missing Sock by Jason Thurston. In this story the young girl is sad when she loses a sock. So she goes searching for it. Both is books would be great for kindergarten 1st grade age children.

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young shoe shine wonders the street of a busy city looking for customers. A red cloth falls from the sky. The shoe shine boy looks up at the laundry above him and starts to climb. He asks everyone he meets if the red cloth belongs to them. No no claims it but they keep sending him higher and higher on the buildings. Finally on the roof he meets the owner of the cloth and she thanks him and sends him on his way. But as he reaches the ground the cloth floats down to him again. I like the way this book throws in cultural references from all the people the boy meets.

[Rakisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laundry Day: A shoeshine boy in early 20th century NYC goes on an adventure to find the owner of a lost red scarf. He encounters immigrants from all over the world as he hops from fire escape to clothesline. The illustrations are engaging and have few visual gags. The foreign phrases gives this book an extra boost, and could probably be used as a title for the Social Studies Common Core Standard. But I am confused as to what category this book falls into. Is it a picture book or is it a graphic novel? It has panels like a comic but I'm not sure.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A shoe shine boy finds a scarf and tries to return it to his owner. In his search, he works his way up the balconies of a New York tenement building, asking and helping the residents as he goes. He encounters a variety of ethnicities and possible uses for the scarf before he finally finds its owner. A glossary of the foreign language words is included on the endpapers. Very clever illustrations, striking use of the color red, varied perspectives add much drama as the boy climbs, tightrope walks, and shimmies down a pipe. Most pages laid out in panels, comic book style.

[Rebecca Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a beautiful story about a little shoe-shone boy who finds a red cloth that fell down from somewhere in the high up laundry lines. He scales the building until he finds the owner, an immigrant woman who wears it as a headscarf. We meet people who immigrated from different places on the way up. As a thank you, she lets another cloth fall down and he keeps it as a scarf. I liked the colorful, full-page cartoon style illustrations, but I wasn't entirely sure about the message.