ALA Booklist

Isadora captures the mood of an island and the spirit of children in this evocative picture book. Where morning / meets light / we rise, and four island children look out a wooden window at readers. The children hide at the market, swim at the shore, and fish, sail, and run on the beach. Where rain meets earth, we splash. And in a joyful exhibition, Where song meets soul, we dance. Isadora's pictures move and sway like a Caribbean breeze. The loveliness of the pictures works in tandem with the honed text; there are only three lines of text per page, but they overflow with meaning. A wonderful read-aloud for individuals or groups. (Reviewed November 1, 1998)

Horn Book (Mon Feb 06 00:00:00 CST 2023)

"Where morning / meets light, / we rise." So begins Isadora's tribute to life on a Caribbean island. The poetic text encourages the reader to visualize the meeting of the waves and the sand, wind and hill, song and soul, and to imagine the activities that follow. Although some of the illustrations seem posed, the vibrant watercolors provide a picture of the island and its children.

Kirkus Reviews

Isadora (The Little Mermaid, p. 582, etc.) celebrates both a place and childhood; her book evokes the land and seascape of Caribbean island life, and the elemental experiences that plot a child's references. On the book's righthand pages are Isadora's nimble sun-bleached watercolors_sea, hills, market, friends, rain, song_while the lefthand pages hold six words that report a feeling or activity: "Where wind meets hill, we run," "Where song meets soul, we dance," and "Where moonlight meets path, we walk." Life on the island is touched by natural magic, where real places fuse with dreamscape, and a water world is made secure by friends, family, and the rhythm of daily acts. There is no point in quibbling that Isadora presents only half the picture_an idyllic half_since that is her point: to wring from this environment all the beauty it holds. (Picture book. 3-8)

School Library Journal

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