Carpenter's Helper

Renata is a protagonist whose wonder and curiosity shine throughout, and readers will gladly share in her unexpected encounters with these small visitors, who are, as Renata declares, carpenters too. 

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. (Mar.)

Gr 1-3--In this lovingly told story, Renata and her father, both Black, are remodeling their bathroom. Renata helps her father with supplies and assists him with holding boards. When the weather warms, they leave a hole in the wall open where they plan to put a window. The next morning, Renata discovers a pair of wrens have started to make their nest on the shelf of a hanging curio cabinet. Renata and her father put their bathroom remodel on hold as they spend the next few weeks watching the wrens build their nest, lay eggs, and take care of their babies. When it is finally time to fledge, the babies get stuck in the slippery old-fashioned tub and Renata comes to the rescue with a board to give them a halfway point to rest on their way to the window. Renata's father calls her "carpenter's helper" for the myriad ways she has come to the rescue. Caroche's sweet paintings show this very small human family at work, imbuing each pose with dynamism and emotion, and that's true of the wrens, too, intricately detailed and full of personality. VERDICT A low-key story about patience and its rewards; readers will enjoy Renata and her father's careful tending as the wrens settle in.--Lia Carruthers, Gill St. Bernard's Sch., Gladstone, NJ