All in the Family
Serbian-Canadian artist Dušan Petricic would like you to meet his family. My Family Tree and Me (Kids Can Press, 24 pp, $18, ages 3-7) introduces readers to his relatives on his father’s side; flip the book over and read the pages backward, and learn about his mother’s side of the family. The two end up meeting up in the middle of the book, a giant family reunion.
Petricic takes a very straightforward approach to explaining the concept of lineage to very young readers, who may have heretofore been confused on how a room full of old people are related. There isn’t much narrative beyond “Here are my great-great-grandparents, my great-grandparents,” and so on; much of the short book depends on its unique structure and the strength of Petricic’s illustrations, a collection of portraits with references in each one to the generation that came before it. The most interesting stories in My Family Tree and Me go untold, but are hinted at within each image’s details. Petricic presents a scavenger hunt, urging readers to seek out connections in their own family trees.
Growing up in New Orleans, Maddy always felt out of place as the youngest of five daughters. Almost 10, it’s her turn to spend the summer on the bayou with her grandmother — a woman who, her sisters warn her, is almost definitely a witch. And so begins the captivating Bayou Magic by Jewell Parker Rhodes (Little, Brown and Company, 241 pp, $19, ages 8-12) an ode to family, nature, folk tales and the Deep South.
Maddy bonds with her grandmother and the bayou in a way that her sisters couldn’t, causing Maddy to feel finally at home. She believes she may have inherited some of her grandmother’s magical powers, particularly the ability to communicate with fireflies (these things skip a generation, apparently). Rhodes presents the supernatural elements as just one part of they story’s mosaic, no more important than the swamps that Maddy explores. Perhaps Grandmère really is a witch, but the magic in the book’s title is about home, not sorcery.