cover image Angelina's Prayer

Angelina's Prayer

Cheryl Bartky. Bark of the Tree Communications (www.Counseling4theSoul.com), $5.95 paper (48p) ISBN 978-1-4811-6715-4

In this sweet but underdeveloped Christmas-themed chapter book about generosity, accepting loss, and defining home, nine-year-old Angelina and her mother have just moved to Albuquerque, N. Mex., from New York City. Angelina clings to the hope that her father, who abandoned them two years earlier, will return, but she is uncertain how he will find them now that they have left New York. Angelina quickly befriends two neighbors%E2%80%94Tony, who is Hispanic like Angelina, and Minerva, who is Jewish. After Angelina learns about the local holiday custom of lighting luminarias and their power to answer prayers, she thinks that they could be the way to make her family whole again. While the premise is moving, Bartky's dialogue can often be wooden ("Do you think if I made lots and lots of luminarias and set them all around my house, they would grow so bright that my dad would be able to find me?"). Bartky does a fine job of conjuring the New Mexico landscape and Albuquerque community, but the story feels shoehorned into its slim format. Ages 8%E2%80%93up. (BookLife)