One Afternoon by Yumi Heo

I wanted to read a book that was written by an author that is different from my ethnicity. I also chose this book because I really liked the illustrations. They are very detailed and the text is written differently on every page. Some are wrapped around different pictures, some text is written in a collage like way, some text is placed in different areas such as the kitchen table. I really liked this because it was different from a lot of children's books that I have read the text is quite simple, and describes the story of a boy and the typical day he has with his mother. They go to the laundromat, the hair stylist, grocery store, ice cream store, pet store, and how they traveled through a busy city. Along with story words, there are also different words placed on the page that go along with the objects that make noise. For example, at the pet store there are words like "wuf, wuf, and meow, and tweetle tweetle" to describe what the animals sound like. Another page that had these kind of sound effects was at the supermarket. Words such as "KaChing" and "clink" to signify the sound of the cash register. I thought this book would be a fun read for a younger audience because the simple text and fun illustrations are very engaging and inviting to young readers. I think little kids would have fun reading all the sound effects and making sense of which objects make which sounds. Other than the main character and the mother being Asian, I was surprised to see that most of the other characters in the background were Caucasian. This idea could facilitate good questions and discussion about ethnicity and race.