A child’s fondness for Valentine’s Day is an unusual premise for a story, to be sure. So this one captivates right out of the gate. Valentina’s obsession with this special time of year and her cute little imaginary friend Cupid are charmingly rendered in sepia tones with the occasional pop of cherry red color.
Her story is poignant, strange yet all too familiar: family issues are cropping up along with adolescent pangs and disappointment. Her attempt to drag her Valentine’s Day ritual into her high school home class meets with disaster and shame. She doesn’t understand why nobody feels the same way she does about spreading love and joy.
Valentine’s Day also coincides with the Chinese New Year—hence the title of the story. Valentina’s celebration of this ancient Christian feast day shows her to be a child of two worlds, as does her grandmother’s taking her to a Christian church. You’d think the elderly lady would bring her to a temple of some sort but, nope, it’s a church with all the usual trappings: scores of lit candles, Gothic arches, crucifix, stained glass windows and a towering statue of a saint. This serves as the backdrop to a surprising twist of news.
The opening chapters are whimsical, low key and feature shifts of emotion as Valentina grows older. It’s a lovely start to this story of a girl’s curious growth into adolescence.
Her story is poignant, strange yet all too familiar: family issues are cropping up along with adolescent pangs and disappointment. Her attempt to drag her Valentine’s Day ritual into her high school home class meets with disaster and shame. She doesn’t understand why nobody feels the same way she does about spreading love and joy.
Valentine’s Day also coincides with the Chinese New Year—hence the title of the story. Valentina’s celebration of this ancient Christian feast day shows her to be a child of two worlds, as does her grandmother’s taking her to a Christian church. You’d think the elderly lady would bring her to a temple of some sort but, nope, it’s a church with all the usual trappings: scores of lit candles, Gothic arches, crucifix, stained glass windows and a towering statue of a saint. This serves as the backdrop to a surprising twist of news.
The opening chapters are whimsical, low key and feature shifts of emotion as Valentina grows older. It’s a lovely start to this story of a girl’s curious growth into adolescence.