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Fang, X.

Broken

48 pp. | Tundra | October, 2025 | Trade ISBN 9781774882009 $18.99
(2) K-3 Illustrated by X. Fang. A young girl tells a story about a cup, a cat, and some cake. While visiting her grandma, bored Mei Mei decides to scare Mimi the cat but in doing so accidentally breaks Ama’s cup. Running outside, Mei Mei imagines Ama’s reaction: will she get mad or yell or kick her out of the house? Instead, Ama invites her in for tea, then affectionately calls the cat naughty for breaking her cup. Stricken with guilt, the girl tries very hard to eat some cake but is stopped by Mimi’s indignant stare; successive spreads show the cat’s face getting larger and larger, culminating in four horizontal panels of “CAKE! / MIMI! / CAKE! / MIMI!” She soon breaks down and confesses. Ama gives her a hug, saying, “What’s bro-ken can also be fixed,” and together they repair the cup with glue. In a final spread, Ama drinks from her cup, Mimi naps, and Mei Mei finally enjoys some cake. Digitally colored pencil drawings convey the high drama of a child’s emotions: in a rotated vertical spread, Ama looks tall as a giant when she finds her granddaughter huddled outside; when Mei Mei later admits to her mistake, she cries a river of tears. Fang’s (Dim Sum Palace, rev. 9/23) story is laced with humor; don’t miss the endpapers showing a wide-eyed Mimi knocking the mended cup off a table
Reviewer: Jennifer M. Brabander | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2025

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