BookDragon Blog

*STARRED REVIEW
“Serendipity” perhaps best describes Richard Ho’s (Red Rover) second picture book, The Lost Package, enhanced by writer/artist Jessica Lanan’s (The Fisherman & the Whale) superbly expressive watercolors. Together, the creative pair present a wondrous story about separation and near-magical reunion.

Under the watchful eye of a tortoiseshell cat, an Asian American girl packs a box with great care. She drops the package at the post office, where it’s “weighed, stamped,/ labeled, and loaded onto a truck.” At a building with “wondrous machines” and “a maze of moving belts,” the package is processed for airport transport. Alas, the delivery truck ferrying the box to its intended flight hits a pothole, throwing the box out of a suddenly open door into a roadside puddle. Many pass by, until a spotted dog insists its humans stop and look. The timing proves perfect … because the box’s intended destination is exactly where the canine and his two people (a Black mother and child) happen to be moving to that very day. Both a happy ending and hopeful new beginnings ensue.

Despite this USPS truck’s unlatched door, Ho’s author bio credits USPS with his very existence: “I might not be here today,” he insists, had the USPS not provided his immigrant father with stable employment that allowed his parents to have a second child – him. Lanan’s stellar artistry gorgeously amplifies the USPS’s sophisticated processes, while simultaneously enhancing the personal links (matching bff photos, cross-country breaks, introductory tea) the package enables. Both informative and inspiring, The Lost Package celebrates surprising connections that can happen when what’s lost gets found.

Discover: When a package lost in transit gets found, serendipitous connections happen in Richard Ho and Jessica Lanan’s informative and inspiring picture book collaboration.

Review: “Children’s and Young Adult,” Shelf Awareness, March 26, 2021

Readers: Children

Published: 2021