Lissy's Friends
During her first day at her new school, Lissy feels ignored, so while eating lunch alone, she creates an origami bird to keep her company. Then the bird, which she names Menu, magically flutters to life. With Menu in her pocket, Lissy feels better, and she folds more paper friends. At the playground, Lissy spins her menagerie on the merry-go-'round and loses them in the wind, but happily, a girl finds and returns Menu, and a new friendship begins. With a minimal, evenly paced text, Lin's story captures authentic new-student feelings. Like many kids, Lissy works through her loneliness privately, rather than by telling a parent, but her inventive methods will reassure kids. Lin's bright, cheerful paintings, enlivened with colorful, origami-paper-inspired patterns, boost the story's comforting tone, and a final image, showing Lissy's blown-away paper friends in Paris enjoying coffee, adds to the whimsy. Origami instructions appear on the endpapers. A solid choice for children harboring new-school anxieties, this will partner well with Helen Stephens' Blue Horse (2003), which has a similar premise. Engberg, GillianCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved