Here I Am

Newly arrived from their faraway homeland, a boy and his family enter into the lights, noise, and traffic of a busy American city. The language is unfamiliar. Food, habits, games, and gestures are puzzling. They boy clings tightly to his special keepsake from home and wonders how he will find his way. How will he once again become the happy, confident kid he used to be? Walk in his shoes as he takes the first tentative steps toward discovering joy in his new world.

For ages 5-9.

*Wordless picture book that follows a child's "immigration journey" to the United States
*Deals with the emotions of acclimating to a new community and way of life

About the Author:
Patti Kim was born in Pusan, Korea, and immigrated to the United States on Christmas of 1974 with her mother, father, and older sister. At the age of five, she thought she was a writer and scribbled gibberish all over the pages of her mother’s Korean-English dictionary and got in big trouble for it. Her scribbling eventually paid off. She earned her MFA in creative writing at the University of Maryland. She is the author of A Cab Called
Reliable. She lives with her husband and two daughters who give her plenty to write about every day. This is her first children’s book.

About the Illustrator:
Sonia Sánchez lives with her husband and a sleepy-head cat in a blue house near the Mediterranean Sea. She paints with both traditional and digital brushes and likes a lot of texture in her work. She loves children’s
books and her favorite illustrators are Quentin Blake and Fiep Westendorp. Sonia studied illustration at Pau Gargallo’s Arts and Design School of Badalona in Spain. Her illustrations have been published abroad in books, magazines, on graphic posters, and textile designs for clothing.