Anna the Bookbinder
Basic Information:
Illustrator: Ted Rand
Publication Year: Mar 2003
Publisher: Walker and Company
Book Type: Picture Book
Grades: 1st to 6th
ISBN-10: 802788319
ISBN-13: 978-0802788313
About the Book:
Anna loves to sit in the corner of her father's workshop watching his skillful hands as they lovingly repair books. She understands what other people do not: Though the new large binderies that are stealing her father's business can bind books faster, their work will not endure as long.
To many customers though, speed matters more than skill. Her father's most important client threatens to pull his business unless his latest order of books is rebound in three days. Anna's father works long hours struggling to complete the order, but all seems lost when Anna's pregnant mother goes into labor the night before the order is due. Determined not to let her father fail, Anna decides to take the fate of the family business into her own hands.
Author Perspective:
In the early 1980's, when I was in my early twenties, I lived in Lausanne, Switzerland. I taught English in a school in the morning and apprenticed to a bookbinder in the afternoon. While I was living there, the bookbinder's business was slowing down because the libraries were taking their work to commercial binderies which were much cheaper. He was struggling to keep his business afloat. At the same time, he and his wife gave birth to their third child. It was not an easy time for them. These experiences became the seeds of Anna the Bookbinder. I changed the location to the United States and set the story during the Industrial Revolution.
Awards:
Reviews:
School Library Journal
"Kindergarten-Grade 3. Anna, the young narrator of this quiet picture book, loves to help her father in his bookbindery. She shares his concern that customers are using cheaper, large-volume operations that glue bindings rather than carefully stitching them by hand. When a special rush job needs stitching just as Anna's mother goes into labor, the girl decides to do the work herself. Her father is surprised and delighted to find the job done and done well when he comes to tell her of her new brother's birth. Rand's luminous watercolor illustrations of an early-1900s home and business beautifully re-create the era, and his characterization is exact. Papa is the essence of a worried, hardworking, but caring father. Longhaired Anna, with her wire-rimmed glasses and blue pinafore dress, is the picture of Edwardian girlhood. Their motivations are clearly delineated, and it is easy to believe that this serious and determined child could have completed the difficult task on her own." Louise L. Sherman, formerly at Anna C. Scott School, Leonia, NJ. 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Booklist
"K-Gr. 2. Anna and her parents live upstairs from her father's bindery, and she loves the smell of paper and leather and glue. Papa's biggest client wants him to finish a set of books in three days, but Papa is working hard, and Mama is waiting for the new baby to be born. When Anna's baby brother finally does make his appearance, it is Anna who finds a way to finish the books on time. Papa has a bookish surprise for Anna in return. Warm watercolors limn an early-twentieth-century home and shop of beautifully rendered accoutrements and equipment. Anna sews the signatures of a book that is not in a sewing frame and is still in its leather boards--possible, but highly unusual in terms of technique. The story of craft passed from father to daughter, the welcoming of a new sibling, and good work well done are lessons that shine here. A similar story, in a different historical period, with technique far more clearly delineated is Bruce Robertson's beautiful Marguerite Makes a Book (1999)." GraceAnne DeCandido. American Library Association. All rights reserved.
Booklist
"Ages 4-8. Helen is bothered by having to give up her room to Gong Gong, her Chinese grandfather, when he comes to live with the family. She's puzzled by his sitting and reading his Chinese newspapers. As she can no longer watch the trains from her bedroom window, she sits on the concrete wall in the backyard to count the cars and wave to the engineer. It's there one evening that Gong Gong joins her and teaches her to count the cars in Chinese. They sit together long after the engineer waves good-bye, counting in both Chinese and English. So begin their language lessons and a special relationship. Conveying nuggets of Chinese culture as well as bits of the language, Cheng's story hints honestly at the difficulties of resettling an aged, non-English-speaking relative, and in velvety colors, Zhang's acrylics paint the growing relationship with simple integrity. A brief glossary with pronunciation guides presents words in both Chinese and English." Ellen Mandel. American Library Association. All rights reserved. This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
--Booklist
Booklist
"In many of today's immigration stories, the break with the Old Country is not as final as it used to be, and young people travel back and forth across borders and generations to visit extended family and explore their roots. In this picture book for older children, 11-year-old Xiao Mei, the child of an American father and a Chinese mother, is persuaded by Grandma Nai Nai in America to take up the invitation from Uncle Hai Tao to spend the summer in Shanghai. Cheng's free-verse story, illustrated with Young's small, expressive line-and-watercolor pictures, shows the child's initial doubts, the plane journey and the arrival, and the welcoming young cousins and adults. Whether she is making wontons, doing tai chi in the park, helping her cousin buy a computer, or singing the songs from The Lion King in English and Chinese, she discovers her connections with a rich, exciting world. A glossary and a pronunciation guide will help readers pronounce the Mandarin names and words.
BookDragon
"The family’s separation will definitely strike a chord with parents as they will share Sharon and Mary’s initial shock. But Cheng resolves her story with great care and understanding without judgment, which readers of all ages will undoubtedly appreciate. —BookDragon 
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