Review by Booklist Review
Ages 5-8. Cassie, whom readers will remember from Tar Beach (1991), dreams that she flies among the stars. What we really see, though, is Cassie and her brother flying through the neighborhood as Ringgold's simple text first presents a nine-block word-picture "quilt," followed by a double-page spread from which viewers are invited to pick out the words and objects named in the blocks on the preceding page. Through this pattern we're presented with Cassie's apartment, her bedroom, her block, her school, and her street, each scene full of outlined shapes and colors demanding the eye look and linger. End papers feature an alphabet placed in a quiltlike grid that is bordered with patchwork blocks radically different but similar enough in scale to blend with each other. Vibrant and friendly, this will make pre-reading skill development fun. --Denise Wilms
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The heroine takes readers on a tour of her home, neighborhood and school, featuring Ringgold's signature quilting. Ages 3-6. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-This is a wordbook, but much more. It is a lesson in the history and culture of New York City, 1939. Through Cassie, from Tar Beach (Crown, 1991), Ringgold presents a simple exploration of the child's life. In the well-patterned layout, readers see the roof of her apartment house, her bedroom, her block, her classroom, and her neighborhood. Two spreads introduce each area. One side of the first spread has a sentence such as, "Cassie's school is a good place to learn and have fun." The opposite side has a second explanatory sentence above a block of nine labeled pictures, laid out like a small quilt, that show things in the school, like "Classmates," "Teacher," and "Apple." The next spread takes those nine words and puts them into the classroom, so that students, the teacher, the apple, and the six other words reappear in that spread in action. The era and place come to life in Ringgold's boldly colored, heavily outlined paintings that show busy streets, Cassie's orderly multiracial classroom, the details of her neighborhood such as the grocer selling a quart of milk for six cents, a horse-drawn fruit stand, and a hand-pushed ice cart. Sentences and vocabulary are simple enough for beginning readers to handle on their own, but the book is also a wonderful vehicle for one-on-one sharing and classroom use.-Jane Marino, Scarsdale Public Library, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Cassie returns in yet another concept-book spinoff from [cf2]Tar Beach,[cf1] this time using items in her Harlem neighborhood to teach word identification. The type sometimes gets lost in the dark colors of the otherwise attractive artwork, and the book, which includes items and vocabulary specific to its 1939 setting, is impractical as an early reading tool. From HORN BOOK Fall 2002, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Cassie, the main character of Ringgold's beloved Tar Beach (1999) and two related board books, appears here in a large-format work designed for toddlers and preschoolers (and ESL students) who are learning to name objects and people. The format alternates between three types of pages: a central illustration from the Tar Beach world with one simple descriptive sentence, all framed with one of Ringgold's glorious quilt-square borders; a simple sentence followed by a nine-block grid of labeled single objects and people; and a double-page spread incorporating those single objects and characters into a neighborhood scene with additional labels. These one-word labels are all capitalized, which is unfortunate from an educational standpoint, as the groundwork is being laid with prereaders for conventions of print such as capitalizing proper nouns and the first word of complete sentences. Despite this drawback, Ringgold's many fans will welcome another story about Cassie, and this title serves as a bridge between the Cassie board books and the more complex Tar Beach. Eye-catching endpapers with a bright alphabet-block quilt design provide another way for young children to practice their prereading skills. (Picture book. 1-4)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by School Library Journal Review
Review by Horn Book Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
