YASMIN'S HAMMER

In the noisy streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh, another busy morning is beginning as Yasmin rides to work in her father's rattling rickshaw. Yasmin yearns to go to school so she can read. 

YASMIN'S HAMMER is a gorgeous new story by Ann Malaspina inspired by her travels in South Asia and the children she saw working there, many doing hard labor, and to whom this new picture book published by Lee & Low is dedicated. Doug Chayka's illustrations echo the extreme poverty in the story and Yasmin's hope for an education. With every brick Yasmin and her sister struggle to break, readers begin hoping, too, that the girls will find a way to attend school.

From BookDragon, blogger for the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program: She [Malaspina] also provides a welcome list of ways that readers – both the youngest and their parents – can help the children of Bangladesh … if you can read, you can also help.