Just Announced: The Children's & YA Book Awards Winners Explore Now

Walk with Me

Add to Wishlist

Walk with Me

Paperback

$14.99

View All Available Formats & Editions

Paperback
$14.99

View All Available Formats & Editions

SHIP THIS ITEM

Qualifies for Free Shipping
PICK UP IN STORE
Check Availability at Nearby Stores

Available within 2 business hours

Want it Today?
Check Store Availability

Related collections and offers

Overview

A simple, imaginative story depicting the complex emotional reality of a girl whose father no longer lives at home.

The girl conjures up an imaginary companion — a lion — who will join her on the long walk home from school. He will help her to pick up her baby brother from daycare and shop at the store (which has cut off the family’s credit), and he’ll keep her company all along the way until she is safely home. He will always come back when she needs him, unlike her father whom she sees only in a photograph — a photograph in which he clearly resembles a lion.

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.7
Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.

Product Details
About the Author

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781773067438
Publisher:	Groundwood Books
Publication date:	05/07/2024
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.66(w) x 8.66(h) x 0.00(d)
Age Range:	3 - 6 Years

About the Author

Author JAIRO BUITRAGO has collaborated with Rafael Yockteng on several picture books, including Jimmy the Greatest! (six starred reviews), Two White Rabbits (three starred reviews), Walk with Me (three starred reviews), Lion and Mouse (two starred reviews) and Wounded Falcons (two starred reviews and named a USBBY Outstanding International Book). Jairo has also won the Hispanoamericano Castillo prize for children's literature and the Antonio García Cubas Award. He lives in Mexico City, Mexico.

RAFAEL YOCKTENG has illustrated many highly acclaimed children’s books, including Afterward, Everything was Different: A Tale From the Pleistocene; Wounded Falcons (two starred reviews and named a USBBY Outstanding International Book); Jimmy the Greatest! (six starred reviews); Two White Rabbits (three starred reviews); and Walk with Me (three starred reviews) by Jairo Buitrago. Rafael’s books have been included on IBBY’s Honor List, the Horn Book Fanfare and in the White Ravens Catalogue. He lives in Bogotá, Colombia.

ELISA AMADO is a Guatemalan-born author and translator. She has written My Friend (Mi amiga), illustrated by Alfonso Ruano; Un Barrilete para el Día de los Muertos / Barrilete: A Kite for the Day of the Dead; Cousins (Primas), illustrated by Luis Garay; and Tricycle (El triciclo), illustrated by Alfonso Ruano, which is on the Américas Award Commended List and is a USBBY Outstanding International Book. She lives in Toronto.

From the B&N Reads Blog

Page 1 of

Editorial Reviews

"Walk With Me" is refreshingly original, consistently entertaining, and very highly recommended.

Midwest Book Review

Buitrago and Yockteng present a beautiful and complex story of courage and hope where there seems to be none.

Horn Book

The richly colored, expressionistic multimedia illustrations add a great deal of depth to the minimal text.

Booklist

★ 03/06/2017
The duo behind Two White Rabbits returns with another compassionate portrait of a child negotiating difficult circumstances with grace. The narrator, an unnamed girl with shaggy dark hair, is joined by an imposing lion as she makes her way through a rundown, smoggy city after school. Wherever they go, passersby look on with shock (some faint in fright). “Let’s go together into the neighborhood,” she says, “and into the store that won’t give us credit anymore.” (Here, the lion unleashes a mighty roar, and the shopkeeper quickly pushes two bags full of groceries to the girl.) Yockteng’s smudgy pencil drawings fill in many details left unsaid by Buitrago’s understated text; together they reveal a girl who quietly and capably handles the adult tasks set before her (picking up her baby brother, cooking dinner while her mother works). The closing revelation that the lion represents her absent father leaves readers with haunting and poignant questions; whether he has actually returned, briefly, or if the lion reflects her imagined wish for his companionship is left as open-ended as the unexplained reasons for his absence. Ages 4–7. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Walk with Me

Kirkus Prize Finalist
Kirkus Best Picture Books 2017
New York Public Library Best Books for Kids
School Library Journal Best Books 2017
ALSC Notable Children's Books
Cooperative Children's Book Center Best of the Year

"Emotionally resonant in the loveliest of ways." — Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW

"With guided discussion, youngsters can see beyond the deceptive simplicity of this poignant story. A strong choice for all collections." — School Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW

"The duo behind Two White Rabbits returns with another compassionate portrait of a child negotiating difficult circumstances with grace." — Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

"The richly colored, expressionistic multimedia illustrations add a great deal of depth to the minimal text." — Booklist

"Buitrago and Yockteng present a beautiful and complex story of courage and hope where there seems to be none." — Horn Book

"Walk With Me is refreshingly original, consistently entertaining, and very highly recommended." — Midwest Book Review

Praise for Two White Rabbits by Jairo Buitrago, illustrated by Rafael Yockteng

Kirkus Best Picture Books of the Year
School Library Journal Best Picture Books of the Year
NCTE Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction for Children, Recommended Book

“This simple, yet poignant picture book beautifully illustrates the life of one migrating family … An important and timely picture book for every library collection.” — School Library Journal, starred review

“A masterpiece of understatement. In leaving readers with much to wonder about, the book packs the most powerful of punches.” — Kirkus, starred review

“Hope and hardship coexist in this haunting look at refugees fleeing home in hopes of a safer, more secure life.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review

Praise for Jimmy the Greatest! by Jairo Buitrago, illustrated by Rafael Yockteng

Kirkus Best Children’s Books
Horn Book Fanfare
School Library Journal’s 100 Magnificent Children’s Books

“Eye-opening inspiration in this unassuming import from Colombia.” — Kirkus, starred review

“This gentle tale of self-fulfillment and acceptance will be a winning addition to collections.” — School Library Journal, starred review

“In a world where so many must leave their homes to find work, it’s inspiring to see Jimmy able to do a truly great thing, right where he wants to.” — Horn Book, starred review

From the Publisher

★ 03/01/2017
Gr 1–4—A girl invites an imaginary lion, a metaphor for her missing father, to accompany her on her long walk home. Along the way, she must pick up her baby brother from child care and purchase groceries, and when they arrive home, she prepares dinner before her mother returns from the factory. The illustrations are all full-bleed spreads. Sketched in pencil, scanned, and then redrawn and colored digitally, they depict a run-down neighborhood, with buildings in disrepair and clothing drying on a rooftop near rabbit-ear antennas. The necessity for the young girl to assume so many adult tasks and the spare apartment with cracked walls, a broken cabinet, and one bed shared by mother and children are evidence of the poverty they experience in the absence of the girl's father. While the text contains no Spanish words, there are Spanish signs on buildings and advertisements, and though the time and place are not specified, there is much that can be inferred. In a family portrait, the father's bushy hair closely resembles the mane of the lion the girl invents to help her brave the difficult and scary aspects of her life. What might have happened to her father? Details in the illustrations hint at the many cases of "los desaparecidos" in Latin American history. How can readers cope with their own life challenges? VERDICT With guided discussion, youngsters can see beyond the deceptive simplicity of this poignant story. A strong choice for all collections.—Marianne Saccardi, Children's Literature Consultant, Cambridge, MA

School Library Journal

★ 2016-12-14
A lion accompanies a child on a walk home during a day in the city in this wistful tale of parental absence.The story begins with a simple gesture: a nameless, light-skinned child in a school uniform holds out a flower to a lion. "Keep me company on the way home," says the child. The lion then follows the child, terrifying adults—and delighting other kids—at school and on the city's streets all the way home. The pair dashes by crowded buses and cars, stops to pick up the child-narrator's younger sibling, and even shops at "the store that won't give us credit anymore." (Fortunately, the ferocious feline can help with the last difficulty.) At home, things start to settle down as the trio prepares a meal and waits for Mama to return from the factory. The day soon ends, and the lion departs, though the child-narrator hopes it returns when called. Similar to Buitrago and Yockteng's previous collaborations, the story ends on a poignant and unexpected note. The first-person narration tugs readers along with ease, deftly eliciting compassion from the performance of seemingly mundane tasks. Yockteng's muted illustrations depict the city as full of cracked buildings, drab colors, and expression captured in movement. Minor details in the pictures, including environmental print in Spanish, take readers in different directions all at once, adding to the low-key narration. Emotionally resonant in the loveliest of ways. (Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews

Related collections and offers

Overview

Product Details

About the Author

Related Subjects

Customer Reviews