In a picture book that blends realism and fantasy, a shoeshine boy is surprised when a piece of red silk falls from the sky. Trying to find its owner, he ventures up and down fire escapes, back and forth across clotheslines, and into the company of the colorfully diverse people who live in the tenement. Lively pages laid out in multiple panels, with a few words of text in dialogue balloons, capture the exhilarating action, and foreign language phrases are translated on the endpapers. There is a cheerful side to a neighborhood packed with people of different origins?the opportunity to make friends across race lines, culture lines, and clotheslines! AGES: 4 to 8 AUTHOR: Maurie J. Manning is the author/illustrator of "The Aunts Go Marching," an IRA Notable Book (2003, Boyds Mills Press) and the illustrator of many other titles. For this book, her Clarion debut, she drew inspiration from the Latino American branch of her family. REVIEWS: "Everything teems with movement and life--completely beguiling."--Kirkus, starred review Colour throughout
