A candid, approachable resource for curious kids.
Burcaw (Laughing at My Nightmare, 2014) answers the 10 most common questions kids ask about his disability, spinal muscular atrophy.
When kids ask, “What’s wrong with you?” Burcaw, a white man in his 20s, replies, “Absolutely nothing is wrong with me. I’m just a little different!” With humor and candor, he answers questions ranging from “Why is your head so much bigger than the rest of your body?” to “How do you play with your friends?” In addition to learning about SMA, readers will discover how Burcaw gets around, plays football with friends, and eats pizza just as they might, except with the aid of a motorized wheelchair and the physical assistance of his parents and brother, who help him with “almost everything.” Though many of Burcaw’s chatty, straightforward explanations are specific to his own situation, some are more broadly applicable, such as “Please ask me before you touch [my wheelchair]!” Carr’s close-up color photographs illustrate Burcaw’s explanations by highlighting their humorous aspects—his brother dresses him in a silly outfit, a large-headed T. Rex provides a pep talk—and emphasizing his family’s closeness. Photos of family vacations and goofing around with friends remind readers that Burcaw is, indeed, “not so different” from themselves. An author’s note provides a more complex explanation of SMA as well as background on Burcaw’s nonprofit, Laughing at My Nightmare.
A candid, approachable resource for curious kids. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62672-771-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40.
From two Nobel Peace Prize winners, an invitation to look past sadness and loneliness to the joy that surrounds us.
Bobbing in the wake of 2016’s heavyweight Book of Joy (2016), this brief but buoyant address to young readers offers an earnest insight: “If you just focus on the thing that is making / you sad, then the sadness is all you see. / But if you look around, you will / see that joy is everywhere.” López expands the simply delivered proposal in fresh and lyrical ways—beginning with paired scenes of the authors as solitary children growing up in very different circumstances on (as they put it) “opposite sides of the world,” then meeting as young friends bonded by streams of rainbow bunting and going on to share their exuberantly hued joy with a group of dancers diverse in terms of age, race, culture, and locale while urging readers to do the same. Though on the whole this comes off as a bit bland (the banter and hilarity that characterized the authors’ recorded interchanges are absent here) and their advice just to look away from the sad things may seem facile in view of what too many children are inescapably faced with, still, it’s hard to imagine anyone in the world more qualified to deliver such a message than these two. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-48423-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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