Sofie and the City

Sofie, a recent immigrant from Senegal, has little use for her new home in a big American city: "Chum! Sofie sticks up her nose up at the ugliness here." Feeling abandoned by her hard-working parents (who are always either at their jobs or sleeping) and teased by peers about her distinctive hairstyle, Sofie is ready to return to Senegal—or so she says to her beloved Mame (grandmother) during their weekly phone calls. But Mame says it's up to Sofie to "make [the city] pretty." One day, the heroine discovers how, with the help of another girl she meets, who has "two soft cotton balls [of hair] on the sides of her head... just like Sofie." A resident of Senegal herself, Grant's (Nelson Mandela ) direct but empathic prose brings her heroine alive; she captures both the lilt of Sofie's accented English and the snippiness that masks an aching homesickness. Montecalvo (Stanley and Iris ), working in bold strokes of acrylic paint that resemble pastels, conveys a city that's foreign but not forbidding—there's a promise of energy and liveliness in the environment, if Sofie can only let herself see it. The pictures' rough texture at first suggests the grittiness of urban life, but then transforms into the sidewalk canvas that (together with some chalk) gives Sofie solace and a source of friendship. Grant and Montecalvo make Sofie's poignant metamorphosis feel both real and uplifting. Ages 6-up. (Mar.)