Member Reviews
Young Lana and her family are forced to flee their home, leaving everything they've known and loved behind. Starting anew somewhere else proves difficult, though Lana finds her new classmates welcoming and helpful.
This is a sweet and thought-provoking story, though I wish it hadn't been told in rhyme. The tale does have a happy ending, but the sing-songy poem adds too much levity to the a story based on such serious subject matter.
This short, simple picture book is about a refugee girl who is overwhelmed about attending her new school and doesn't have the supplies that she needs. The other students rally around her and support her, and the book ends on a heartwarming note. I felt that the story was a little bit rushed and undeveloped, and the text didn't always flow well. The book is just average, in my opinion, but could certainly be helpful for a parent or a teacher to read to try to teach empathy or introduce a service project.
One Box, Many Hearts is a great book for young kids to talk about kindness. Any kid can relate to this story because either they were the new student or they had an opportunity to welcome a new student.
A young student is new to a country, a school, and a home and classmates recognize that not having many belongings will affect feeling safe, comfortable, and connected. They give a box full of school items to help with this problem. Sharing kindness is always a good thing. Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book virtually.
The sentiment of this story is amazing. Refugees leave their homes quickly and are allowed very little of their belongings when leaving for a safer home. This is a great purchase if your curriculum or population needs discussions like these or if there are many activities showing ways to be kind to others. I see it as an additional purchase only as I get very little budget for my school libraries.
A warm-hearted verse narrative of a picture book, as a refugee child with very little indeed to her name ultimately gets to find the charity of her schoolmates. The simple idea of the gifting – everyone contributing some small thing to a large box to be appreciated – is one worth sharing, and the visuals are fine. On the text side, it is noticeable that the lines get longer and longer towards the end and lose all sense of the metering the earlier verses gave us, but not really to the piece's detriment. It remains four stars then.
While I know the hardship of moving and having to live in a new town and start a new school [something I have always hated], I cannot imagine having to do it as a refugee - the bravery involved in leaving all you know because of the danger around you and coming to a country, that while safe, is completely brand-new [with a whole new set of problems], is mind-blowing to me.
In this lovingly illustrated book, a new girl feels even more displaced in her new home/school [and misses her old home so very much] until some very kind students welcome her in the best way and the young girl starts to feel better about her new home/school and is able to see things might be okay after all.
This book is a great way to start a conversation [or several, as the book is reread] about refugee's and that all that means [and within the child's ability to understand, some more stories about what living in a war-torn country, or a country that is suffering under a dictatorship regime means], about authors/illustrators from other counties [this author is from Qatar, and the illustrator is from Lebanon], and a HUGE reminder that is costs absolutely nothing to BE KIND and that we should be choosing kindness always.
Very well done.
Thank you to NetGalley, Bayan Khaled, Fadi Salameh - Illustrator, and Rosen Publishing Group/Windmill Books for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
In this story, a kid moves to a new country with nothing. The classmates notice and help make her feel welcomed. It is a heartwarming book and could be a good read aloud at an appropriate time.
With so many refugees needing to relocate from their unsafe home countries, this is an important book to share with students. What a wonderful welcome it would be for the newly relocated child to be shown such care by their classmates. I hope this book finds its way into classrooms with immigrants and refugees.
This was such a sweet book about collective kindness and how a small effort from many people can hugely impact the lives of others. It would be a great book for an SEL lesson.