Mommy's Hometown
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
When a young boy and his mother travel overseas to her childhood home in Korea, the town is not as he imagined. Will he be able to see it the way Mommy does? This gentle, contemplative picture book about family origins invites us to ponder the meaning of home. A young boy loves listening to his mother describe the place where she grew up, a world of tall mountains and friends splashing together in the river. Mommy’s stories have let the boy visit her homeland in his thoughts and dreams, and now he’s old enough to travel with her to see it for himself. But when mother and son arrive, the town is not as he imagined. Skyscrapers block the mountains, and crowds hurry past. The boy feels like an outsider—until they visit the river where his mother used to play, and he sees that the spirit and happiness of those days remain. Sensitively pitched to a child’s-eye view, this vivid story honors the immigrant experience and the timeless bond between parent and child, past and present.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lim poignantly explores the tension between new and old in this setting-oriented tribute to family bonds. Using evocative first-person prose, the book opens with a child recounting stories about Mommy's rural hometown ("The mountains nearby stood like giants"), but when the pair, who read as East Asian, travel for a visit, the landscape—now full of glimmering high-rises and stores covered with Korean signage—appears different than expected, perplexing the child: "Is this really the same place where Mommy grew up?" A playful wade in the river allows the two to re-create some of Mommy's childhood experiences, and a welcome from Grandma further reassures that "Some things change, and some things stay the same." Moving smoothly between rural and urban environments, Kim's carefully illuminated digital graphics play dexterously with shadow, adding drama to the duo's journey. Ages 3–7.
