KIRKUS REVIEW – 🌟 review

BY WINSOME BINGHAM & WILEY BLEVINS ; ILLUSTRATED BY JASON GRIFFIN ‧ RELEASE DATE: SEPT. 17, 2024

A moving, elegantly constructed celebration of differences sure to foster empathy and stir the imagination.

The story of a table belonging to two different families.

A poor white family owns a wooden kitchen table. It holds the biscuits that Meemaw bakes, as well as the plate of peas the child narrator leaves after devouring cornbread and pork-fat pinto beans. The table also holds a book that the child reads aloud to Meemaw, who’s illiterate, along with bills that Mama can’t pay. The mines that have made Grandaddy sick have also left Papa unemployed, and the family soon loses their house. Since the table won’t fit in their next home, they leave it on the side of the road, where a Black carpenter and his family pick it up. “This a good table right here,” Daddy tells his child, the narrator of the book’s second half. And once it’s cleaned up, the table holds beef stew, which this youngster dislikes as much as the other child hated those dreaded peas. As the story draws to a close, the youngster wonders about the previous owners of the family’s new-old table. Bingham and Blevins write with a mixture of melancholy and hope, using masterfully chosen details to draw rich portraits of two different families, each united in their love for one another. With his stunning use of textures, Griffin’s ingenious mixed-media illustrations show only the characters’ hands—an intriguing choice that leaves readers to fill in many gaps.A moving, elegantly constructed celebration of differences sure to foster empathy and stir the imagination. (creators’ notes) (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024

ISBN: 9780823456420

Page Count: 56

Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House

Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024

✨ SLJ – 🌟 Review

FICTION

The Table

by Winsome Bingham & Wiley Blevins (text) & illus. by Jason Griffin

Holiday House/Neal Porter. Sept. 2024. 56p. Tr $19.99. ISBN 9780823456420.

COPY ISBN

Gr 1-3–It can be said that everything has a story to tell, but perhaps a beloved kitchen table collects the most stories of them all. From children who are not interested in eating what is placed in front of them to the many activities that take place in a family’s life, a kitchen table is a place for gathering, working, playing, and remembering. And when circumstances change and a table no longer fits in one family’s space, it just might find a new home where more memories can be made. This poetic picture book transports readers to life in the American countryside, where time moves slowly, home-cooked meals are frequent, and family is everpresent. No faces are ever shown, but hands are frequently used as the focal point of the illustrations. These hands are depicted in many hues and clearly showcase the work they have done throughout their lives. Perhaps most interesting is the way the text is presented, primarily in dialogue, but handwritten on rectangles of color that look like strips of paper. The choice vocabulary and onomatopoeia used within the story bring rural America to the readers’ ears, and the inclusion of conversations about church, cornbread, and working class families enhance this design. Beautifully illustrated and thoughtfully written, this is a story that will encourage family discussion and reflection.

VERDICT This unique addition to the shelves celebrates the American experience through the lens of a beloved kitchen table.

Reviewed by Mary R. Lanni , Jun 01, 2024

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY – 🌟 Review

The Table

Winsome Bingham and Wiley Blevins, illus. by Jason Griffin. Holiday House/Porter, $19.99 (56p) ISBN 978-0-8234-5642-0

Bingham (The Walk) and Blevins (the Scary Tales Retold series) collaborate on this layered work about two families who live their lives around the same kitchen table. One largely unseen child, then another, narrates, their perceptions written on thin strips shown on the table’s surface. In delicate acrylic-on-paper illustrations by Caldecott Honoree Griffin, a hand or two sometimes appears, along with food and other objects. When the title opens, biscuits sit on the table, then a plate with a helping of seemingly untouched peas. That won’t do, Mama warns: “There are too many starving kids in the world.” Another page reveals the narrator’s pale-skinned hands coloring Easter eggs. Then the child’s father loses his job in the mines, and the family must move: “We all fit, except for the table.” Placed outside, the object attracts attention from a second family driving by. Now another child, hands portrayed with brown skin, narrates as a second batch of biscuits graces the surface, and a second parent cares about wasting resources: “You eating that food,” says Momma. When this narrator asks, “You think our table has a story?” readers already know it does—“a story only a table could tell.” It’s a brilliantly twined telling in which an object bears witness to the lives of two families “with parents that work hard and long hours and love each other…. Families like mine.” Creator notes conclude. Ages 4–8. Authors’ agent: Hannah Mann, Writers House. Illustrator’s agent: Elena Giovinazzo, Pippin Properties. (Oct.)

Holiday House/Neal Porter