Review Detail

Mommy's Hometown

Kids Fiction 501

Parents Were Children, Too

July 11, 2022

Overall rating

3.8

Plot

3.0

Characters

4.0

Writing Style

4.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

4.0

A boy has heard many stories from his mother about what the town in which she grew up was like. While the country is not specifically stated, the author is from South Korea, and the illustrations show the scenes the mother describes set in a bucolic neighborhood with lots of foliage, houses with Asian architectural details, and a river. When the two travel to the mother's hometown, they find that things have changed dramatically and most vestiges of the rural setting are gone. There is one older house among the new, tall buildings that is reminiscent of Burton's The Little House. While the boy tries to make sense of how things have changed, he is able to get a feel for his mother's life in the country when they are able to play in a river that is now surrounded by concrete reinforcing walls. Even though much has changed, he is still able to connect to his mother's past.

Good Points

I loved the use of light in Jaime Kim's pictures, especially in the evening when there is a red sky shown over the mountains, and the old fashioned house in the city has it's interior lights glowing warmly. The new and modern city is is usually very bright and light colored, whereas the mother's memories of the country have the feeling of a sunny haze. While there are small details that would connect the city to a specific part of the world, the illustrations are generic enough that it could reflect any countryside that had seen a lot of urban growth.

It was good to see a close relationship between the mother and son, and also to see the boy take an interest in the ways the world was different when his mother was a child. It is sometimes hard for children to imagine their parents as younger, so showing the mother playing in the river and running around with friends may spark some good conversations with readers and their adult companions.

There are a lot of middle grade novels about traveling back to visit grandparents in different countries, but I haven't seen too many picture book ones, which surprised me. I'll Go and Come Back by LaRocca is a fantastic title where the girl travels to India and bonds with her grandmother, which would accompany Mommy's Hometown well. Wang's Watercress is a good exploration of continuing family traditions in a new country. For traveling, Júnior's From My Window is a good look at life in Rio de Janiero and Gördüm's I See the Sun in Turkey takes us to that country.