Day in September

Grade 3 Up?Here's an extremely rewarding picture book, evocative in content and stylish in design. It delivers character portraits of two lonely children who meet at a Major League baseball game in San Francisco and chronicles the life-long repercussions of their chance encounter. Raphael is a rich Parisian attending summer camp in California. Estella's parents are migrant laborers who have been given free tickets to the game. Nascimbene tells their story via a series of alternating vignettes, first from one child's life and then from the other's. Language is direct and understated, letting readers feel the connections. Like the text, the illustrations (mixed media with watercolor, in the style of the Japanese printmakers) are simple, quiet, and clean, with space for resonance. With its lengthy text in very small print, the book may meet with some resistance; but its effective use of the format is actually the source of its power and delight.?Liza Bliss, Worcester Public Library, MA
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