From the bold opening assertion, “I am a child with eyes, hands, a voice, a heart, and rights,” to the urgent closing plea, “We need our rights to be respected now—today,” this primer invites young readers to think about their universal rights as children as embodied in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
An engaging child narrator explains that kids have a right to: a name, a family, a country, food and water, shelter, medicines and help if their bodies don’t “work as well as other children’s.” Kids have a right to go to school, to refuse to work, to express themselves, to play and create, to be protected from disasters and wars, to be free from violence, and to breathe air “pure as the blue sky.” These rights apply to all children regardless of gender, race, size, wealth or country if they live in one of the 193 countries ratifying the Convention. Readers may be surprised, however, to discover the United States is not one of these countries. Engagingly naive acrylic illustrations spanning double-page spreads evoke Chagall in their use of flat patterns, swirling lines, vibrant hues, and symbolic, powerful dream-like images of the repertoire of children’s rights.
Provocative and guaranteed to spark awareness of children’s rights. (note on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child; list of states party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) (Picture book. 4-7)
