The Yellow Handkerchief (El pañuelo amarillo)
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A child confronts conflicting feelings of embarrassment and love for her Mexican abuela in this moving, personal story from Newbery- and Pura Belpré Award–winning author Donna Barba Higuera
My abuela wears an old yellow handkerchief that her grandmother gave to her.
I don’t like the yellow handkerchief.
When a young girl feels ashamed of her family for being “different” and subconsciously blames her abuela, she gradually grows to not only accept but also love the yellow handkerchief that represents a language and culture that once brought embarrassment.
Inspired by the personal experiences of award-winning author Donna Barba Higuera and expressively illustrated by Cynthia Alonso, The Yellow Handkerchief is a lyrical, honest, and intimate intergenerational story about embracing who we are, where we come from, and the people who shape us.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this deceptively simple story, a yellow square of fabric embodies a Latinx child's internalized shame over the differences between their home life and that of a white-presenting friend. In the unnamed narrator's multigenerational home, "my abuela wears an old yellow handkerchief that her grandmother gave to her" as she "scrubs the mud off our patio on her hands and knees" and undertakes other domestic tasks. When the narrator's friend Becca asks what Abuela is cooking and why (after plucking a chicken) she has feathers in her hair, the protagonist feels embarrassment. Wishing the family had money for takeout and would buy chicken at the store "like everyone else," the protagonist offers increasingly frustrated variations on, "I can't stand that yellow handkerchief." But when Abuela has to stay elsewhere for health reasons, and leaves the handkerchief behind, the ache of missing her changes everything. Higuera's tight, insightful text, and Alonso's playful digital illustrations—threaded with pink and purple—lighten an intensely personal-feeling exploration of shame and pride. An author's note concludes. Ages 4–8.
