Bitter and Sweet

Starred review from September 15, 2018
Preschool-G *Starred Review* Hannah's family is moving to a new town. Though she's sad to leave her house and friends, her grandmother tells her that every change has nice parts and hard parts. Recalling her childhood journey from the old country, Grandma says, Definitely some bitter but even more sweet. When Maya, a girl on her new block, gives Hannah a bag of cocoa powder, it cheers her up. But mixed with hot milk, it tastes bitter! The next day, Maya tells her to add sugar, and soon they're drinking hot chocolate together. Calling Grandma that night, Hannah explains that when you find only the bitter, you must add the sweet yourself. The bitter-sweet dichotomy runs throughout the story, tying the ups and downs of Hannah's emotions to her grandmother's experiences and advice. An appended note connects it with Jewish traditional practices and wisdom as well. While telling a familiar story about the difficulties of moving, the quietly expressive text offers a clear view of Hannah's emotions and a hopeful, yet practical perspective on making things better. Brooker contributes a series of richly detailed collages incorporating oil-painted, printed, and photographed elements into complex, dynamic illustrations. This insightful picture book sensitively portrays Hannah's sadness and her return to equilibrium.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

August 1, 2018
Little things matter.Many classic children's books are shaped around very small, very important moments, and at first Feder's story might not seem to fit that pattern. This picture book is about a big life change: Hannah is leaving all her friends to move to a new neighborhood. Her grandmother promises her it will be "definitely some bitter but even more sweet." The story is told through tiny, poignant details. Hannah sees everything she owns packed onto a big truck; she watches her home "disappear from sight" through the window of a car. These moments don't always have the impact they should, and the final pages of the book feel almost anticlimactic: Hannah's new neighbor Maya offers her some hot chocolate. And, in fact, the chocolate turns out to be bitter. But Hannah discovers that, when she adds sugar to the powder, it's delicious. The last few lines of the book are poetic. Hannah tells her grandmother, "I thought it was only bitter here," and when her grandmother asks if she's found "the sweet," Hannah says, "You can't just find it. You have to add it yourself." Nothing else in the book quite reaches that level of beauty, though Brooker's illustrations are a marvel. Her collages seamlessly blend the most basic geometric shapes--circles for heads--with ultra-detailed photographs and are populated with mostly light-skinned characters. Hannah's family is Jewish.Some of the small, important moments feel smaller than necessary, but the last scene is a tiny, perfect gem. (Picture book. 3-8)

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January 1, 2019
Hannah is upset because she must move to a new town. As her grandmother describes her own move long ago, a striking oil-paint and collage spread shows a Jewish family from Europe being welcomed by Canadian relatives; "Definitely some bitter but even more sweet," she tells Hannah. An afterword explains the symbolism of bitter and sweet in Jewish tradition, but the feelings about moving are universal.

(Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)