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Sep 25, 2015evaquin rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Told in verse, this is the moving story of the close relationship between a girl and her grandmother, a story spanning about 15 years. The title alludes to the gifts that the grandmother brings her grandchild from her trips around the world; these gifts are not physical souvenirs of her wandering through Australia, Mexico, Hawaii and Switzerland, but lyrical images of each trip that they can share together on the grandmother’s return home. In the last page of the book, the girl has become an adult and is giving the joy of travel to her own child. Awarded with the 2011 Canadian Children's Book Centre TD Grade One Book Giveaway Selection, this book is made of incredibly plush and detailed images created with the plasticine technique characteristic of Reid’s work. Every single page is a delightful masterpiece that children can contemplate for hours. The images are not only visually very appealing, but their originality and playfulness jump off the page: in the image of Mexico City, for example, the grandmother’s painting replaces the real background and both images are mixed together, and in the passage about the trip to the Arctic the open suitcase’s shadow forms the shape of a polar bear. These surprising elements enrich a book that is in every way a pleasure to read.