Written by: Samuel Narh
Illustrated by: Jo Loring-Fisher
For ages: 3-7 years
Language: English and some Ghanian
Topics Covered: POC-Centric Narratives, Family, Biracial Family, Love, Imagination.
Summary: This is a really cute story about a young girl named Maisie and her parents. Her father is African, and while the ethnicity of her mother is not specifically mentioned, she appears to be of European descent. The story is a celebration of the fact that while sometimes Maisie’s parents wear different clothes or call items by different names, they love and hug her the same. Maisie’s father tells her African stories and her mother comforts her when she gets scared.
The story reads much like a collection of memories, or a scrapbook (calling back to the book’s title). We absolutely love the illustrations, especially the grumpy looks of Maisie’s face when her parents are nagging her. Overall, we liked this book and it’s lovely to see a culturally blended and multiracial family represented in a children’s book without that being the entire plot of the story, bashing the reader over the head. The book is about the memories that Maisie has with her parents, and the love she feels from them.
About the Author & the Illustrator:
Samuel Narh was “immersed in many folktales from the African continent and beyond as a child. Narh was born and raised in Ghana. For that reason, he is a natural storyteller. Narh enjoys using words to paint beautiful stories. He brings these attributes to the craft of writing picture books for young children. Narh’s stories are alive and they are meant to touch and move people. The messages are fashioned to enrich the lives of both young children and adults.”
Jo Loring-Fisher is an “artist, illustrator and graduate of Cambridge School of Art’s MA in Children’s Book Illustration. She lives with her husband and two youngest daughters close to Stonehenge on Wiltshire’s beautiful Salisbury Plain in England.
Jo loves the countryside, and enjoy creating images using a range of materials including collage, ink, paint and printmaking. Much of her inspiration comes from observing nature and everyday life.
Jo loves the scope of subjects that children’s books cover, from light-hearted, to tackling the challenges we all face. She will sometimes favour difficult subject matter softened by the use of her chosen materials. Jo enjoys illustrating the texts of others, as well as my own material.”