Hope

Hope

by Isabell Monk, Illustrated by Janice Lee Porter

Carolrhoda Books, March 1999, 32 pp., $15.95 ISBN 1-575-05230-X, Picture book, ages 4-7.

Isabell Monk's depiction of how one child learns of her biracial heritage is refreshingly rendered in this new book titled Hope. The story unfolds as Hope reflects upon a special summer weekend she spent in the country with her mother's Aunt Poogee. It was the summer before she entered the second grade, and when she heard the story of how she got her name.

For Hope, spending a part of the summer with her great-aunt Poogee in the country was a special treat because Aunt Poogee makes the "most incredible chicken, …