The Journey
From the creators of the Caldecott Honor bookThe Gardenercomes a handsome  story about a young Amish girl's first visit to a big city. Each night Hannah  writes to a "silent friend" (her journal) about the thrilling sights in Chicago:  "If I stacked our home, the barn, and my one-room schoolhouse on top of each  other, they wouldn't even reach the fourth floor of one of those huge  skyscrapers! The city has more ofeverything. More buildings. More cars  and buses. More people--all kinds of people--with almost all the colors of a  quilt in their different clothes and faces." Her exuberance is tempered only by  her homesickness, which is beautifully portrayed in illustrator David Small's  pictures of Hannah's rural home, alternating with the exciting, strangely  parallel depictions of city life. In the illustration for the above journal  entry, for example, readers see the gridwork of city streets, with blocky  skyscrapers in the background. On the next two-page wordless spread, Small  reveals a view through Hannah's mind's eye of the women of her community working  together on a similarly gridlike patchwork quilt. Hannah is an appealing guide  to the city; readers will be mesmerized by her unique perspectives. (Ages 6 to  10)--Emilie Coulter