The Dress and the Girl

May 28, 2018
Graceful artwork by Morstad (When Green Becomes Tomatoes) creates an elegiac atmosphere for a story that unfolds in a small Greek village, where blue shutters and red tiles enliven the whitewashed walls. Andros (Charlotte the Scientist Is Squished) writes about a dress (“much like many others, made for a girl by her mother”) and a girl; together, they spend their days “picking daffodils, feeling the wind, and staring at the stars” and longing for the extraordinary. When the girl’s family emigrates to turn-of-the-century America, the trunk that contains her dress goes missing. One narrative thread personifies the dress, imagining it “searching” the world over for the girl before the dress and the girl, now grown, reunite and remember their shared “singular, stunning, or sensational” history. While the conceit of the dress as an active character feels a bit clunky, the lyrical text and evocative art will make readers linger. Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Lori Kilkelly of Rodeen Literary Management. Illustrator’s agent: Emily van Beek, Folio Literary Management.

June 15, 2018
Around the turn of the last century, a Greek village girl wears her beloved red dress as she goes about her daily life only to be separated from it when the family emigrates.The child and her dress lead a seemingly idyllic, nature-filled life under blue skies, among whitewashed buildings, but they long for adventure. For unexplained reasons, the family boards a ship, where girl and dress play and go to school as before, details that subtly convey the length of the passage. Upon arrival at Ellis Island, the family is separated from the trunk in which the dress is now packed. The trunk, unclaimed, circles the globe in search of its rightful owners, eventually landing in a secondhand shop. Now grown, the girl spots her dress in the window and buys it for her own daughter. Morstad's (House of Dreams, 2018, etc.) clean illustrations expertly evoke the era through a nostalgic color palette and the (unnamed) locations through carefully chosen details. The opening and closing spreads echo each other, reinforcing the theme of connection. Immigrant stories are perennially relevant, and the rarely seen 20th-century Greek setting is refreshing. However, the dress--while attributed human feelings--never generates enough emotion to create dramatic tension, and readers are not shown the impact on the family of starting a new life without most of their worldly possessions.A gentle tale well-suited for family-history and creative-writing units. (Picture book. 4-8)

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September 1, 2018
Grades K-3 An ordinary girl and an ordinary dress once belonged to each other. As the girl longs for something extraordinary, the dress is content with the simplicity of their lives together in Greece. But when it comes time for them to move to America, the trunk containing her faithful dress goes astray. The story then follows the dress' journey through the world as it thinks about her girl and the times they spent together, which, in retrospect, were quite extraordinary. This deceptively simple story is one of immigration, loss, change, unity, possibility, and chance. Most of all, it is about appreciation. While the girl longs for something singular, stunning, or sensational, readers might be drawn to notice that the world around her, created by Morstad's delicately detailed illustrations, is in fact quite stunning. In perfect juxtaposition, the spare, lyrical text is completed by images that capture time, place, and essence. There is a quiet wisdom to this book that asks us to look around and take note and allow time to work its magic.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2019
During a girl's immigration to America, she loses her favorite flowered dress, handsewn by her mother. Years later, she spots the same dress in a shop and buys it for her own daughter. A warmhearted, quietly told story, with expressive, delicate-lined illustrations showing the girl's Mediterranean-looking island home, the child's shipboard experiences, and the imagined travels of the dress.

(Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from August 1, 2018

PreS-Gr 3-An ordinary girl and her favorite dress do ordinary things together every day, but they long for the extraordinary-something singular, stunning, or sensational. One day, the girl and her dress set out on a long journey across the ocean to America. Along the way, they continue to do ordinary things but feel that they may be on the cusp of something extraordinary. The girl and her dress are separated when they reach their destination and they each continue on their own parallel journeys through life. Then one day, something extraordinary happens: the girl, now a woman, is reunited with her favorite dress when she spots it in a store window years later. Wonderfully, the dress is the perfect size for the woman's daughter. And so, a new extraordinary story about a girl and her dress begins. In The Dress and the Girl, Andros tells an immigration tale-an experience that is common but is not always shared. Morstad's light, airy, and simply beautiful illustrations run from cover to cover, including the endpapers, which are in the same pattern as the dress, and act as the perfect accompaniment to the circular plot. Together, the carefully crafted text and gorgeous illustrations pair to tell a truly extraordinary tale. VERDICT A delightful picture book with an important story to be told. Recommended for sharing again and again.-Elizabeth Blake, Brooklyn Public Library

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