Carpenter's Helper

February 1, 2021
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature. Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open "like coats that are suddenly too small." Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche's drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest's many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.) Renata's wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

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Starred review from April 12, 2021
Renata, an Afro-Latinx child with brown skin and two Afro puffs, is helping her bearded, bespectacled Papi complete the construction of their new bathroom. But their work comes to a halt one morning when the pair discover an unexpected visitor: “It’s a little bird—a wren!—peppy and plump, with an upturned tail.” The wren weaves a nest with his partner on the shelf of an open bathroom cabinet, and soon enough, “four rosy eggs with red-brown blotches” hatch. Rosen’s prose is keenly observed, from the steps the birds take to build the beautiful little nest to the fledglings’ flight lessons. Excelling in natural illustrations with a slightly cartoonish bent, Garoche offers fine-lined pencil art colored digitally in a soft color palette. This gentle story, with its respect for family, nature, construction, and collaboration, will lift readers’ spirits as surely as Renata boosts the wrens. Ages 3–7.