Astrid and Apollo and the Puppy Surprise by V.T. Bidania, illustrated by Evelt Yanait.
Picture Window Books, Capstone, North Mankoto, Minnesota, 2021.
Early chapter book, 64 pages.
Lexile: 490L .
AR Level: 2.7 (worth 0.5 points) .
Twins Astrid and Apollo are about to have a birthday and they are each working on a surprise for the other. Astrid is sure that Apollo’s making her something just like the custom t-shirt she’s designing for him, but is he?
I’m so thrilled about this series. It’s one of the worst feelings to have a student request books about a kid like them and you can’t meet the request because the books literally haven’t been published. In most cases something similar can be found, but for one Hmong student, it was so challenging to find anything at all, let alone something at the right level and with good production quality and of interest to that particular child. When you add in the budgeting and invoicing and approval systems librarians have to go through to add unique books to their libraries, it wasn’t a great situation.
These books are not only exactly what I was looking for back then, they’re even written by a Hmong author! As far as I can tell, the illustrator is European, but she must have either done her research or consulted closely with the author, because there are several small details in the artwork that are culturally specific.
The book opens with two pages “Meet Astrid and Apollo” and “Hmong Words.” The twins have a younger sister Eliana and their family lives in Minnesota. Apollo specifies that their parents were born in Laos but both grew up in the USA, an important detail for students who might not have familiarity with Hmong people. I like how the vocabulary section includes pronunciation, translation, and the Hmong spelling, but in the book itself there isn’t any italicization or othering of Hmong details.
The back of the book includes facts about the Hmong, some popular Hmong foods, a glossary of English words (again including pronunciation and meaning), and some further questions for discussion or checking comprehension. The main text is divided into five chapters.
Each chapter has between two and three illustrations, all in color. Some are half page illustrations while others are full, and the illustrations are set amongst the text in a way that makes sense. The text is a nice big black serif font on a white page, with adequate spacing around the words for young readers.
It’s fairly obvious what’s happening with the surprise (if you didn’t guess from the cover and title, the text makes it even more clear) so this is definitely aimed at the youngest of chapter book readers. I could see reading this out loud to a kindergarten class or using it as a small group text, but it’s probably best suited to independent readers.
This particular volume is mainly from Astrid’s point of view (necessary to preserve the surprise element of the birthday present), but I believe others in the series include Apollo’s viewpoint instead, or both of them.
This would be a sweet birthday present, a nice step up from Ling and Ting Share a Birthday. I would consider this whole series essential for libraries and classrooms anywhere with large Hmong population, but remember that representation is also important even if the books are not mirrors for any of your students. Even though I have left school library work, Capstone and Bidania bringing culturally specific and highly relevant books like this out gives me so much joy.
I do have another book (by a white author but about a Hmong girl) on my shelves awaiting review, which was my solution for the student mentioned at the beginning. There also have been a few more nonfiction books published in more recent years. But to have an entire series, by a Hmong author, would have been even better! It’s especially nice to have something like this for early chapter book readers, and the fact that it was available at Target and has a high production value is a huge plus.
Recommended.
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