★★☆☆☆ I wouldn't have enjoyed this when I was seven and I didn't enjoy it yesterday
Watercress
Andrea Wang, Jason Chin (illustrator)
Watercress is a short picture book that a very large number of people seem to absolutely love. I picked it up because it was a Newbery Honor book. To be completely honest, I am at a loss to understand why.
I won't describe the plot (such as it is), because the publisher's blurb pretty much gives it away. On its Amazon page it is designated "Editor's Pick: Best Books Ages 6-8". When I was seven, I'd have immediately seen this as a book intended to inform me that I should Stop Complaining, because Things Could Be So Much Worse. (Please -- seven-year-old kids are not stupid. They may be naïve, and there's obviously a lot about how the world works that they haven't yet had time to learn, but they can definitely recognize a scolding.) There's also a message about how the children of immigrants often have difficulty connecting with their parents' past. But that story has been told better than this many times.
But here's the big problem: There's no FUN! It's hard to imagine any seven-year-old kid wanting to read this a second time.