School Library Journal Review
Gr 1--2--It is late autumn when the Kelly family receives a package containing a jigsaw puzzle of an African swimming hole at sunrise from an anonymous sender. The card reads, "Good luck to you all." The Kellys (Mom, Dad, Kitty, Katie, and Lucy the dog) happily take on the challenge. Unbeknownst to them, the illustrations show that almost immediately a puzzle piece is dropped and ends up in the trash. Life is busy, but as time permits, they work on the puzzle. It is nearly the following autumn before it is almost done and they discover, "ONE PIECE IS MISSING!" Clever Mom deducts that the piece must have been thrown away. With hope in their hearts, they head to the dump to find the puzzle piece of Hippo's swim trunks. While searching through a huge pile of paper trash, they find many things, but not the puzzle piece. Luckily, it finds them. As they head home in defeat, it sticks to the bottom of Dad's shoe. It falls off on the kitchen floor, where Katie finds it, and together the Kellys complete their beautiful puzzle. Graham's delightful ink and watercolor illustrations are an integral part of the story. They not only take the text to the next level with fun details and expressions, but in places deliberately and effectively replace it altogether. VERDICT A love letter to jigsaw puzzlers young and old, and a lighthearted reflection on things lost and found. The mystery of who sent the package remains unsolved. Purchase where Graham's books are popular.--Catherine Callegari
Publisher's Weekly Review
When the Kelly family receives a jigsaw puzzle in the mail, the package has no return address--just an unsigned card that reads "Good luck to you all." What follows--for jigsaw puzzle fans, anyway--is almost too painful to relate. In softly tinted watercolor and ink art, Graham (Ellie's Dragon) conjures "a beautiful jigsaw--an African sunrise," depicting a bunch of animals captured in mid-air above a swimming hole. As the white-presenting family dives in, images reveal almost immediately to readers that a piece has gone missing, planting the seed for the comedy gold that ensues. Months later, Dad sees the hole in the all-but-finished puzzle ("ONE PIECE IS MISSING!"), and the highly invested family heads to the paper recycling center to search for the missing piece, in the process sorting through fragments of memory and time: letters of love and sorrow, train tickets, and newspapers. The ending of this beguiling little gem resolves one mystery but leaves another open-ended, cleverly meditating on the way that slow-burn quandaries and jigsaw puzzle time--both of which move in seasons, not seconds--can be conducive to contentment. Ages 3--7. (July)
Horn Book Review
Graham, an expert in spinning affectionate stories from the details of ordinary family life (see most recently Ellie's Dragon, rev. 11/20), here tackles the ubiquitous mystery of the missing jigsaw-puzzle piece. The Kelly family members -- Mom, Dad, Kitty, Katie, and dog Lucy -- receive a jigsaw puzzle in the mail from an anonymous giver that depicts an "African sunrise." Over the course of the next year, the family completes the puzzle. Well, almost. What the reader knows from the illustrations is that one piece was accidentally thrown out in the trash the very day the puzzle arrived. When the Kellys discover the problem, they go into overdrive, visiting the giant paper recycling warehouse in a wild, hopeful quest. Graham's fans will know to expect a miracle. His squiggly, interrupted pen line can render even a pile of wastepaper dynamic, and the cadence of his text makes the ordinary grand. "There were letters of love from faraway places, letters of sorrow, notes of forgiveness, bus tickets, train tickets, cards saying 'thank you,' and newspapers old and forgotten in time." Obviously inspired by our stay-at-home lives over the past couple of years, this timely tale is a celebration of wishful thinking. Sarah Ellis September/October 2022 p.59(c) Copyright 2022. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Assembling a large jigsaw puzzle that arrives from parts unknown gives the Kelly family months of pleasure--and a final challenge. "ONE PIECE IS MISSING!" A fruitless search of the house and some hard thinking by Mom lead to the conclusion that it must have gone out in the trash--which sharp-eyed readers will already know, having followed the tiny but brightly colored bit in previous scenes from floor to vacuum to trash can and out to the sidewalk for pickup. So the Kellys head for the recycling center and sort through a towering mountain of love letters, tickets, cards, and old newspapers. "Shouldn't take long," says young Katie with impressive optimism. "It's waiting around and will find us again," agrees Dad. And, against all odds, the piece does find them, making its way home after the family's long, discouraging search on the sole of Dad's boot. Now how will Katie and little sister Kitty send a thank-you note to the puzzle's anonymous sender? Sandwiched between before-and-after endpaper views of a puzzle scene of anthropomorphic African animals joyfully leaping into a pond, Graham offers an episode as rich and intimate in feeling as it is spare both in words and visual style. Human figures in the informally drawn, often wordless scenes are light-skinned throughout. (This book was reviewed digitally.) A celebration of small miracles and the hope that makes them happen. (Picture book. 6-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
