While the advice leans toward the basic, this manual imparts some helpful messages.
An illustrated guide offers self-help exercises geared toward girls.
This book’s title is a bit misleading. The work has nothing to do with photographs. MacDonald explains what she means by selfie: “Your selfie is all the qualities you are and your true self—not just what you see in a picture taken on a smartphone.” That about sums up this manual, an assemblage of exercises and crafts focused on discovering and putting forth the best of one’s self. The guide has a target audience—girls in grade school, maybe on up into their freshman or sophomore years in high school. For older teens, some of the exercises may seem a little juvenile. It’s hard to imagine, for instance, a high school senior constructing an “Outer Sanctuary” box that includes pieces of paper that say, “This makes me feel safe” and “This makes me feel loved.” Still, MacDonald provides some useful information when it comes to self-acceptance. She tells readers not to be defined by what people say about them and how they treat them and gives instructions on wellness for the body, mind, and selfie. Things can get a bit simplistic, such as this insight into how you should feel if someone doesn’t like what’s on your selfie board: “Not everyone is going to like the things you like and that’s OK! Just because someone may not like it does not mean it’s bad or wrong!” MacDonald’s text is accompanied by some lovely and fun illustrations, though the book oddly doesn’t indicate who contributed them. The author ends her work with 68 cards that she suggests readers refer to at least once a week. They contain pronouncements such as “I see beauty in others when I see their qualities” and “Fitting in means growing and learning, not changing who I am.” That’s about as deep as MacDonald cares to go, although these sentiments—and others like them—are important to learn at a certain age.
While the advice leans toward the basic, this manual imparts some helpful messages.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-03-911159-2
Page Count: 108
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
With young readers diagnosed with anxiety in ever increasing numbers, this book offers a necessary mirror to many.
Young Raina is 9 when she throws up for the first time that she remembers, due to a stomach bug. Even a year later, when she is in fifth grade, she fears getting sick.
Raina begins having regular stomachaches that keep her home from school. She worries about sharing food with her friends and eating certain kinds of foods, afraid of getting sick or food poisoning. Raina’s mother enrolls her in therapy. At first Raina isn’t sure about seeing a therapist, but over time she develops healthy coping mechanisms to deal with her stress and anxiety. Her therapist helps her learn to ground herself and relax, and in turn she teaches her classmates for a school project. Amping up the green, wavy lines to evoke Raina’s nausea, Telgemeier brilliantly produces extremely accurate visual representations of stress and anxiety. Thought bubbles surround Raina in some panels, crowding her with anxious “what if”s, while in others her negative self-talk appears to be literally crushing her. Even as she copes with anxiety disorder and what is eventually diagnosed as mild irritable bowel syndrome, she experiences the typical stresses of school life, going from cheer to panic in the blink of an eye. Raina is white, and her classmates are diverse; one best friend is Korean American.
With young readers diagnosed with anxiety in ever increasing numbers, this book offers a necessary mirror to many. (Graphic memoir. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-545-85251-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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