Bao’s Doll
by Bo Lu; illus. by the author
Primary    Abrams    40 pp.
6/24    9781419769214    $18.99
e-book ed.  9798887070858    $17.09

Lu sets up an intergenerational conflict familiar to many immigrant families: Bao, a young Taiwanese American child, yearns for her immigrant mother to understand her, but neither of them is fully able to empathize with the other. This tension reaches a peak when Bao’s unfulfilled wish for an “All-American Artist Amanda” doll—a white, blond, blue-eyed doll that closely resembles one of Bao’s own friends—leads her to commit a rash act of shoplifting. In the aftermath, Mama and Bao finally communicate with each other. Mama relates painful stories about her own childhood and mother, and together they hand-sew a doll for Bao that shares her features, with hair “straight like dry noodles,” eyes “as dark as sesame,” and a smile “curved like a crescent moon.” Lu skillfully juxtaposes simple but poetic language with expressive digital illustrations that mimic the soft texture of smudged oil pastels. Her judicious use of hue and composition, especially within and around the gutter, creates a clear visual of the characters’ internal emotional landscapes and the evolution of their relative distance and intimacy. Bao’s red and Mama’s blue, initially segregated, eventually converge and blend into a gradient containing purple. The illustrations also include various cultural and linguistic details that will likely resonate with many Taiwanese diaspora readers and add another layer to the reading experience.

From the July/August 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.