Earnest and encouraging.
In NBA superstar Curry’s latest, a young Black girl worries that her hearing aids will prevent her from joining her new school’s soccer team.
Though Zoe’s practiced all summer, she’s nervous. What if she’s not good enough? And if she puts her hair up to play, kids will see her hearing aids. Fearing the others won’t accept her, Zoe removes her aids before a game. But playing without them proves difficult, and Zoe flees, lamenting that she’ll “never just be ordinary.” But fellow player Mila, who wears protective glasses, asks, “Who wants to be ordinary…when you can be EXTRAORDINARY!” Mila and her friends Marley and Brooklyn call Zoe’s attention to other athletes, such as a baseball player who uses a wheelchair and a runner with a prosthetic leg: “Can ordinary people do that?” Marley explains that Zoe’s dedication, and her hearing aids, make her extraordinary. Buoyed, Zoe—wearing her hearing aids—makes the team, and together they win the championship game. Author Curry appears on the last page and explains that kids must “find the courage and strength to overcome” challenges. Though it’s refreshing that Zoe’s disability isn’t her defining quality, the use of the word inspirational—a term bearing patronizing connotations for many disabled people—to describe her story risks muddying this point. Still, occasionally heavy-handed speech-balloon dialogue notwithstanding, Zoe’s teammates’ accepting attitudes are reassuring, and Bowers’ bright cartoon illustrations are engaging. Mila is pale-skinned, Brooklyn is brown-skinned, and Marley presents Asian.
Earnest and encouraging. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9780593386064
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
Inspiration, shrink wrapped.
From an artist, poet, and Instagram celebrity, a pep talk for all who question where a new road might lead.
Opening by asking readers, “Have you ever wanted to go in a different direction,” the unnamed narrator describes having such a feeling and then witnessing the appearance of a new road “almost as if it were magic.” “Where do you lead?” the narrator asks. The Road’s twice-iterated response—“Be a leader and find out”—bookends a dialogue in which a traveler’s anxieties are answered by platitudes. “What if I fall?” worries the narrator in a stylized, faux hand-lettered type Wade’s Instagram followers will recognize. The Road’s dialogue and the narration are set in a chunky, sans-serif type with no quotation marks, so the one flows into the other confusingly. “Everyone falls at some point, said the Road. / But I will always be there when you land.” Narrator: “What if the world around us is filled with hate?” Road: “Lead it to love.” Narrator: “What if I feel stuck?” Road: “Keep going.” De Moyencourt illustrates this colloquy with luminous scenes of a small, brown-skinned child, face turned away from viewers so all they see is a mop of blond curls. The child steps into an urban mural, walks along a winding country road through broad rural landscapes and scary woods, climbs a rugged metaphorical mountain, then comes to stand at last, Little Prince–like, on a tiny blue and green planet. Wade’s closing claim that her message isn’t meant just for children is likely superfluous…in fact, forget the just.
Inspiration, shrink wrapped. (Picture book. 6-8, adult)Pub Date: March 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-26949-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
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