Review - A Story About Afiya

A Story About Afiya
by James Berry
illustrated by Anna Cunha
Date: 2020
Publisher: Lantana Publishing
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 32
Format: e-book
Source: NetGalley

Some people have dresses for every occasion but Afiya needs only one. Her dress records the memories of her childhood, from roses in bloom to pigeons in flight, from tigers at the zoo to October leaves falling. A joyful celebration of a young girl's childhood, written by the late Coretta Scott King Book Award-winning Jamaican poet James Berry.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

This is lovely. Even though it's full of symbolism and metaphor, it can also be read simply as a magical tale about a very special dress.

Afiya has a pretty white dress that she wears a lot. The funny thing is that it seems to collect things that get imprinted upon it: sunflowers, roses, fish... even the tigers at the zoo. She washes the dress out, and sometimes the impressions seem to linger. But they're always gone by the next morning, and the dress is ready to hold more new images.

It's obviously about memories, although I don't expect that all children are going to understand that. Still, it's a charming picture book with an appealing heroine and plenty of pretty pictures. I would recommend it to those looking for gentle stories about childhood and memory.

Thank you to NetGalley and Lantana Publishing for providing a digital ARC.

Premise: 4/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 4/5
Illustrations: 4/5
Originality: 4/5

Enjoyment: 5/5

Overall: 4.33 out of 5