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Reviewed by:
  • The Twins’ Blanket
  • Hope Morrison
Yum, Hyewon. The Twins’ Blanket; written and illus. by Hyewon Yum. Foster/ Farrar, 2011. [36p]. ISBN 978-0-374-37972-8 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad 3–6 yrs.

It’s the first time in separate beds for identical twin girls, who have always shared everything. A lingering point of contention is the matter of who gets to sleep with the beloved striped blanket that they have shared since birth (“I think I should have this blanket. Because I’m the big sister, and I can’t sleep without it.” “No, I think I should have it. Because . . . well . . . I can’t sleep without it, either. And you’re only three minutes older than me!”). After their mother sews them each a new blanket containing a part of the old, the two fall asleep in their separate twin beds holding hands across the gap. Yum, who is herself a twin, effectively captures the banter between the two girls, from warm teasing to edgy bickering. There’s actually rather a lot of bickering, though, and the bare-bones style of the narrative, with its sometimes choppy pattern of back-and-forth short sentences between the girls, offers little to soften it or develop the story. The illustrations, soft brushings of watercolor textured and lined with pencil, are similarly but more effectively spare, with abundant white space filling the pages. The girls have black bowl haircuts and rosy cheeks that grow increasingly redder as they get angrier with one another, and there is plenty of extra detail provided by their expressive faces. Depictions of family photos on the walls add additional appeal and conceptual layering, as in the spread of the two girls fighting over a doll sitting in front of two framed photos of them staring at each other standoffishly. Add this to your collection of sibling stories, or grab it for an alternative take on the trials and tribulations of sharing space. [End Page 121]

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