Walk with Me

March 6, 2017
The duo behind Two White Rabbits returns with another compassionate portrait of a child negotiating difficult circumstances with grace. The narrator, an unnamed girl with shaggy dark hair, is joined by an imposing lion as she makes her way through a rundown, smoggy city after school. Wherever they go, passersby look on with shock (some faint in fright). “Let’s go together into the neighborhood,” she says, “and into the store that won’t give us credit anymore.” (Here, the lion unleashes a mighty roar, and the shopkeeper quickly pushes two bags full of groceries to the girl.) Yockteng’s smudgy pencil drawings fill in many details left unsaid by Buitrago’s understated text; together they reveal a girl who quietly and capably handles the adult tasks set before her (picking up her baby brother, cooking dinner while her mother works). The closing revelation that the lion represents her absent father leaves readers with haunting and poignant questions; whether he has actually returned, briefly, or if the lion reflects her imagined wish for his companionship is left as open-ended as the unexplained reasons for his absence. Ages 4–7.

Starred review from January 1, 2017
A lion accompanies a child on a walk home during a day in the city in this wistful tale of parental absence.The story begins with a simple gesture: a nameless, light-skinned child in a school uniform holds out a flower to a lion. "Keep me company on the way home," says the child. The lion then follows the child, terrifying adults--and delighting other kids--at school and on the city's streets all the way home. The pair dashes by crowded buses and cars, stops to pick up the child-narrator's younger sibling, and even shops at "the store that won't give us credit anymore." (Fortunately, the ferocious feline can help with the last difficulty.) At home, things start to settle down as the trio prepares a meal and waits for Mama to return from the factory. The day soon ends, and the lion departs, though the child-narrator hopes it returns when called. Similar to Buitrago and Yockteng's previous collaborations, the story ends on a poignant and unexpected note. The first-person narration tugs readers along with ease, deftly eliciting compassion from the performance of seemingly mundane tasks. Yockteng's muted illustrations depict the city as full of cracked buildings, drab colors, and expression captured in movement. Minor details in the pictures, including environmental print in Spanish, take readers in different directions all at once, adding to the low-key narration. Emotionally resonant in the loveliest of ways. (Picture book. 4-7)

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Starred review from March 1, 2017

Gr 1-4-A girl invites an imaginary lion, a metaphor for her missing father, to accompany her on her long walk home. Along the way, she must pick up her baby brother from child care and purchase groceries, and when they arrive home, she prepares dinner before her mother returns from the factory. The illustrations are all full-bleed spreads. Sketched in pencil, scanned, and then redrawn and colored digitally, they depict a run-down neighborhood, with buildings in disrepair and clothing drying on a rooftop near rabbit-ear antennas. The necessity for the young girl to assume so many adult tasks and the spare apartment with cracked walls, a broken cabinet, and one bed shared by mother and children are evidence of the poverty they experience in the absence of the girl's father. While the text contains no Spanish words, there are Spanish signs on buildings and advertisements, and though the time and place are not specified, there is much that can be inferred. In a family portrait, the father's bushy hair closely resembles the mane of the lion the girl invents to help her brave the difficult and scary aspects of her life. What might have happened to her father? Details in the illustrations hint at the many cases of "los desaparecidos" in Latin American history. How can readers cope with their own life challenges? VERDICT With guided discussion, youngsters can see beyond the deceptive simplicity of this poignant story. A strong choice for all collections.-Marianne Saccardi, Children's Literature Consultant, Cambridge, MA

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2017
Grades K-2 A young girl asks a lion to walk with her as she leaves school, picks up her younger brother from daycare, makes dinner, and waits for her mother to get home from working in a factory. The end pages offer a clue to the undercurrent of this picture book: the front pages show the footprints of a child and a lion, but on the back pages, the lion's prints are replaced by a man's shoe prints. The girl's father is gonewhere exactly is not statedbut a cheerful family photograph demonstrates the love that they shared. The richly colored, expressionistic multimedia illustrations add a great deal of depth to the minimal text. By studying the details, readers will learn about the girl's life and challenges. Younger children can enjoy the thought of riding a lion through city traffic, while older readers will note the dilapidated condition of the girl's neighborhood and apartment. Lions are animals often associated with bravery, so the girl seeking strength from her imagined relationship with the lion presents a compelling narrative.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

May 1, 2017
The book opens with an image of a young girl and a huge lion standing on a grassy hill, with a city skyline far behind them. The young girl offers the lion a flower and asks it to keep [her] company on the way home. Their journey is both mundane and dramatic, depending on whether you read the text or look at the pictures. Buitrago's (Jimmy the Greatest, rev. 7/12) words tell a simple story of a young girl walking home from school, shopping for food, making dinner, and going to sleep. Yockteng's illustrations tell a deeper story. The young girl, living in an unidentified Latin American city, is poor. Her socks are stained and droopy; the buildings in her neighborhood are dilapidated. Fog, or smog, hangs over the city. The illustrations further reveal that there is a violent political climate affecting the girl's life: alongside the night table is a stack of newspapers with a headline that reads Familias de Desaparecidos en 1985 (Families of the Disappeared in 1985), and though we see a photograph of the girl's father, he is otherwise absent from the book. Buitrago and Yockteng present a beautiful and complex story of courage and hope where there seems to be none. There's a clear resemblance between the lion and the father, particularly with the lion's mane and the father's curly hair. Such a parallel suggests that the young girl remembers her father for his courage, like that of a lion, and that she walks with that courage, giving her hope to continue. sonia alejandra rodriguez

(Copyright 2017 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)