Kanji for Your Heart

You will fall in love with Amy Jivani's soulful and magical book, Kanji for Your Heart. Two boys are down with a cold and their mother offers a magical antidote - a bowl of kanji, a hot and yummy rice water based dish or porridge, to "fill your bellies and warm your hearts." Amma takes out a big red bowl, scoops the little dry grains of rice into the bowl, and takes out a tall silver pot to boil the water and the wet rice. Amy Jivani's description of how amma makes the kanji - and simultaneously the illustrations - are just astounding. "Patience little one," amma says as she picks up the wooden spoon to watch the rice gains swell. The boys especially love the first, warm salty bite "that makes the heart tingle like there's a warm campfire inside." Ami Jivani is a magician with words, and the book ends with amma reminiscing about her own mother's kanji and two surprise visitors who ring the doorbell! Kanji for Your Heart is magical food trip to the past and an everlasting medicine for the weary soul. The illustrations are in dominant palettes of white and silver, mirroring the soothing and magical kanji.