A cheerful but one-dimensional book with an admirable message of tolerance.
Elementary school–age Millie announces that she’s a girl and no longer a boy in Clatworthy’s debut picture book.
Millie is a transgender girl who begins the story pre-transition. “[Sh]e like[s] to play with dolls, and games, and trucks, and balls, and toys,” as we learn. Millie has a wide variety of interests, but her preferred wardrobe leans strongly toward princess dresses and high heels. One evening she announces that she’d like to grow out her hair and wants to be called “Millie” (“I’m a girl, and I would like to change my name to Millie. / Inside I’m still the same old kid, but please don’t call me Billy”). Her older brother is apprehensive, yet her parents are lovingly supportive. Millie is happier living as a girl, but she has to come out to more people than just her family: Her classmates and teacher need to know too. How will they react? Clatworthy approaches Millie’s story with an optimism that propels the narrative while normalizing Millie’s experience as she bravely affirms her new identity. But the only real conflict, between Millie and her brother, is left underdeveloped. Clatworthy’s rhyming couplets (“We loved you as Billy and we’ll love you as Millie. / If other folks don’t understand…well then, they’re just plain silly”) reflect the buoyant tone overall, but there is no real thematic need for the rhymes. Sebastian’s illustrations are bright and inclusive: Millie appears to be white, but there are children of different skin tones in her class as well as a child who uses a wheelchair. Each character’s facial expressions are depicted in vivid detail, although the pictures lack tonal depth, much like the story itself.
A cheerful but one-dimensional book with an admirable message of tolerance.Pub Date: April 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781039162242
Page Count: 32
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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