My America Blooms - Perfect Picture Book Friday #PPBF

1 minute ago
3 min read

Change is hard, especially when a child moves to a new town, school, or neighborhood. But imagine leaving everything and almost everyone for a new country. This week's #PPBF choice is a powerful and poetic book sharing a resilient child's encounter with the struggles, ugliness, community, friendship, and hope surrounding her immigration from Iran to the U.S.

Book cover - a girl tossing blossom petals into the air, standing before a background curved image of the U.S. flag

My America Blooms

Author: Nazanin Agange Ford

Illustrator: Fateme Mokhles

Publisher: Beaming Books (June 30, 2026)

Ages: 4 - 8

Historical Fiction

Themes:

Immigration, community, discrimination, resilience and hope.

Synopsis:

Inspired by the author's experience of immigrating to the U.S. from Iran, My America Blooms shares a story of hope.

My America Blooms is a story about a young girl uprooted from her home in Iran. When she and her family are forced to flee Tehran, she brings a pocket of golnar petals from her beloved garden. In America, she begins to tend a new garden as she creates a new life as an immigrant. America brings friendships, community experiences, and stability, planting the seeds of hope. But every garden has its thorns--the girl must dig deep within herself to cultivate the promises of her new home.

This hopeful story embodies the American dream in all its complexity. Fateme Mokhles's evocative, impressionistic art depicts the immigrant experience through the eyes of a child, while Nazanin Agange Ford's moving words remind all readers that they belong.

Opening Lines:

“Pack everything

you don’t want to leave behind,”

Maman says.

But I can’t pack

my bougainvillea and golnar.

We are fleeing

from fighting to freedom,

from home to hope.

What I LOVED about his book:

What a powerful opening, with palpable emotion in the free verse text and a heart wrenching image of a girl sadly curled in a suitcase full of treasures.

Internal image - surrounded by a blue flower border, a suicase lies open with a lantern, pearls, a tied cloth bundle, a wedding photo, books, a bunny, shoes, clothes, a quilt, and a younger girl curled into one corner.

Text © Nazanin Ford, 2026. Image © Fateme Mokhle, 2026.

Preparing to flee Iran, Maman tries to assure her daughter that "we will start a new garden." Prompting the girl to tuck pink golnar petals into a book. Petals which will weave gardening, remembered home, and hope throughout the book. Petals that stream behind the taxi as the flee to the airport and drop on the table at security, when two security women "keep things we did not want to leave behind." With a wonderful visual point of view, the poignant illustrations dramatically shift from a melancholy sadness to a more ominous fear and loss.

Internal spread - mean faced, security women in black rifle through open suitcases, taking out a jewled box and purse, as the girl and mother sadly watch.

Text © Nazanin Ford, 2026. Image © Fateme Mokhle, 2026.

Stunning, colorful, layered collage-like illustrations follow their departure, flight, long immigration review, and finally arrival in America. Where a welcoming, diverse community offers a raised bed (plot) in a joint garden and school friends provide "row after row . . . /. . after row of welcome./ Kindness that grows new dreams/ and creased spines, glossy covers, and leaf after leaf of possibility." Gorgeously highlighting both a literal and figurative garden that has sprouted in their lives. A gorgeous, diverse garden of friends, classmates, and community full of happiness and hope.

Internal spread - at a community picnic, three kids nibble and laugh at a table full of summer foods, while three moms laugh togther and dads play instruments.

But unfortunately, America is "not/ always/ beautiful." Neither the text nor the illustrations gloss over the ugliness in America. They present the hurtful actions of some in America - in the news and in a very personal way that young readers can understand and empathize with. Raising a great question - is this what we want "our America" to be like? Nasty, destructive, and unfair? If not, how can we fight it and change it?

Internal spread - a dismal community garden with hateful graffiti scrawled across the entry arbor gate and the raised beds damaged and ruined.

The beautiful ending offers a realistic, poignant, and hopeful transition from her initial reaction and heart wrenching wish to go back to her self-discovery of resilience and hope. Although never specifically called out or mentioned in the text, the illustrations include a portrayal of her father's solid presence in the background of many scenes and especially in the powerful penultimate spread.

It's a thoughtful invitation to take an honest, hard look at what we want our America to grow - compassion and hope or distrust, anger, and fear. The personal childhood experience of the author is explored in the author's note. This is a lovely, lyrically poetic book encouraging empathy, compassion, and inclusion.

Resources:

Photo collage of 2 of 30 flower crafts .

create your own garden of flowers from these 30 Flower and Craft Ideas.

draw, describe, or build a 3-d model of a garden you would build in your community. How would you grow hope and understanding in your garden?

check out the Discussion and Activity guide for multiple ages by Beaming Books.

If you missed my interview with Nazanin Ford on Monday, find it (here).

This post is part of a series of blog posts by authors and KidLit bloggers called Perfect Picture Book Fridays. For more picture book suggestions and resources see Susanna Leonard Hill's Perfect Picture Books.