Review by New York Times Review
THE TRICKY PART about teaching empathy to children is that you can't really teach it. You can only inspire it. Like its sister words, kindness and compassion, empathy is wakened in the soul. With very young children, it's best to tickle it awake, but it takes a light touch. That's where a good picture book comes in handy. If a child can relate to a character or become immersed in a story, she begins to have feelings outside of her own direct realm of experience. The spark of empathy, delivered gently, can then grow. These five new picture books not only embolden children to think, but inspire them to feel. "Why Am I Me?," written by Paige Britt and illustrated by Sean Qualls and Selina Alko, follows two children on their journeys home from school one day. The children don't know each other, but they share similar questions about themselves and the world around them. They wonder, as they ride a subway full of all kinds of people, why they are who they are. As the subway takes them through neighborhoods, they see people playing in parks, dancing at an outdoor concert or simply walking home from work. Their reflections on the world around them connect them to it, and to each other. The beautifully textured artwork by Qualls and Alko adroitly captures the mood and feel of a city in which diversity among people is such a natural occurrence, it doesn't need to be called out - it simply is. In "Come With Me" by Holly M. McGhee ("Matylda, Bright and Tender"), with pictures by Pascal Lemaître ("Always"; "Who's Got Game?"), a little girl, saddened by the news on TV, asks her parents what she can do to make the world a better place. Her papa takes her on a walk through the city and greets everyone he sees with a kind smile and a tip of the hat. Her mother takes her to a market full of foods from around the world, and tells her to be unafraid "because one person doesn't represent a family or a race or the people of a land." The little girl is inspired by her parents' gentle regard for the world, and invites the boy next door to walk the dog with her. She comes to understand that the goodness of people, with their small acts of kindness and bravery, makes the world a better place. Lemaitre's whimsical cartoons add some needed lightness to the earnest text. Together, the words and pictures work seamlessly to deliver a powerful message: What we do matters. Given that the epigraph of the book is a quote by Yvette Pierpaoli, the humanitarian who died while assisting refugees from Kosovo in 1999 (and who was Lemaitre's motherin-law), adults will understand that the most pressing context of the book is the need for tolerance toward displaced people around the world. That children won't get those larger implications is fine. All they need to hear is that they have a part to play, as "tiny" as it may be, in making the world a better place. "No One Else Like You," written by Siska Goeminne and illustrated by Merel Eyckerman, doesn't follow a character, but approaches diversity from a distance. "In this world there are more than seven billion people," it begins, then explores the many things those people do. Some work, some drive around. Some have tattoos. Some people are happy and some people are sad. People believe all kinds of things and practice all forms of religion. Everyone is different. Those differences, however, are what ultimately unite us: We're all different, and that's what we all have in common. The illustrations do a nice job of conveying the great diversity of people in the world, but it might have been helpful to introduce a character or point of view to help bridge the distance between young readers and that large world around them. While readers might see a relatable character or two in one of the many beautiful representations of people around the globe, it's hard to inspire true empathy from a bird's-eye view. That said, one of my new all-time favorite literary quotes is from this picture book: "People are fragile. You shouldn't drop them, because they might fall to pieces." There's a similar big-picture approach to diversity in "Most People," written by the first-time picture book author Michael Leannah and illustrated by Jennifer E. Morris ("May I Please Have a Cookie?"), but the art wisely introduces repeating characters that weave in and out to form a separate narrative that aligns beautifully with the text. "Most people," we are told, love to smile and laugh. Most people want to help other people. Most people love the sunshine. Most people are good. There are some people who aren't good, of course, but if you could line up all the good people and all the bad ones, the line of good people would be much, much longer. That simple reasoning is perfectly pitched for its young audience, who will enjoy piecing together the story-within-a-story of the two main characters as they illustrate the messages of the text within the context of their own lives. "Most People" works especially well because it doesn't just tell children to "be" good. It shows them how to "do" good. "Lovely," a debut picture book written and illustrated by Jess Hong, is a lively ode to being different. "What is lovely?" the text asks. "Lovely is different." A girl with one blue eye and one brown eye looks directly at the viewer. Then comes a series of illustrative plays on words. The word "Black" is next to a white woman wearing black clothes. On the facing page, the word "white" accompanies a black woman with white hair. On other spreads, we see a tall woman walking a short dog ("tall") opposite a short man walking with a tall dog ("short"), and a red-haired girl with a "fluffy" cat opposite a straight-haired girl with a "sleek" snake. As with any successful picture book, the art in "Lovely" doesn't just illustrate the text, it expands it. This is why a spread like "Fancy. Sporty. Graceful. Stompy" works so well: Illustrated with four sets of legs - hairy legs wearing fancy red stilettos, prosthetic legs playing soccer, black legs in pink ballet slippers, and fishnet-stockinged legs in punk-rock platform boots - it shows the multifarious world in all its glory. The common thread in all these picture books is difference - myriad ethnicities and differently abled people and all kinds of families living and working and playing side by side. For those of us who remember the 1960s and 70s, when "peace" and "harmony" were catchphrases, it's hard to imagine that children's books that show diversity are still so needed. And yet, here we are. As far as we've come, we still have a ways to go. Tolerance. Inclusion. Compassion. Kindness. Empathy. As the song says, teach your children well - or better yet, inspire them well. ? R.J. PALACIO is the author of "Wonder."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 27, 2017]
Review by Booklist Review
The cartoonlike people on the front cover of this disarming picture book dare readers to think of them as unlovely. Missing teeth, potbellies, pink hair, and concave faces are not features that conventional aesthetic norms appreciate. Yet, Hong's disarmingly simple proclamation of loveliness challenges those norms. Here difference is lovely in the face of a girl with one blue eye and one brown eye. It is also found in the sharp studs on the leather jacket of a lilac-haired, nose-pierced androgynous youth. Hairy legs in stilettos and a prosthetic foot in a soccer cleat are likewise worthy of admiration. On one double-page spread, six hands in different skin tones some smooth, one tattooed, and others sprinkled with freckles, moles, or patches of vitiligo finger spell l-o-v-e-l-y in ASL. The book's message is direct and its text simple. Readers will recognize people they've encountered in the world in the smiling faces of these joyous individuals. The stylized, motley multitude gathers on the final spread beneath the uplifting declaration that We are all . . . lovely. --Chaudhri, Amina Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
"What is lovely?" asks newcomer Hong at the outset of a book that celebrates seeing the beauty in everyone. She answers her own question by introducing a cavalcade of individuals young and old, with an emphasis on individual. "Lovely is different," she writes as a girl with heterochromia looks at herself in the mirror. A young white woman in a goth ensemble represents "black," while a brown-skinned woman with flowing white hair and a garland of flowers signifies "white." Other opposite pairs include "soft" (a baby clutching a stuffed bear) and "sharp" (an elderly woman with lavender hair, a nose ring, and a spike-covered leather jacket), and spreads featuring arms and legs showcase bodies with tattoos, freckles, vitiligo, and prosthetic limbs. Hong's digital cartooning is clean and bright, and her portraits casually reflect a diversity of ages, skin colors, abilities, occupations, and family types; a mixed-race gay couple stands opposite a brown-skinned woman carrying her son on her shoulders. It's easy to see beauty in people simply being themselves in these pages, a clear, direct message that readers can carry into their lives. Ages 4-up. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-What is lovely? That is the question that starts off Hong's adorable picture book. Each page offers an assortment of unique individuals, people of different sizes and shapes with varying hair colors, ages, and skin tones. The final page, which includes a woman scientist, a ballerina with purple hair, a man with a goatee and mustache in a dress and heels, small children, a chef with large thighs, a man with a dog, and many others says it precisely: "We are all.Lovely." With minimal text, the digital illustrations carry this book with their bright and bold representation of a diverse set of individuals. Hong subtly gives representation to vitiligo and freckles in an illustration of arms and hands, and includes the prosthetic leg of a soccer player side by side with a hairy leg in heels. VERDICT This clever book would work perfectly paired with Todd Parr's Be Who You Are in a storytime about inclusion and acceptance. While not a must purchase this book is certainly a lovely addition to larger collections.-Shana Morales, Windsor Public Library, CT © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder, and this book encourages readers to regard everyone as "lovely."In today's world, with increasingly evident diversity in race, ethnicity, gender expression, sexuality, fashion, body shape, abilities, and choices about everything, the author/illustrator presents people of every description in the bold, brightly colored digital illustrations. Opposites are introduced: "black" for a white young woman clad in black and "white" for a young-looking, brown-skinned woman with flowing white hair. "Simple" appears on a tattooed white arm, along with a few designs, while "complex" is written on a brown arm, with what appear to be elaborate mehndi designs (henna designs applied before a South Asian wedding). A white baby is "soft," and an older white woman with purple hair, a spiked denim jacket and choker, a nose ornament, and many ear decorations is "sharp." A "tall" person with Asian features walks a small dog. A "short" smaller, light-brown-skinned male with green hair has a large dog. A gay interracial male couple face an adoring dark-brown-skinned child and mom. These pages read: "Lovely is you. / Lovely is me." The last double-page spread includes young and old: a white woman in a wheelchair (there is one amputee with a modern prosthetic leg earlier in the book), a goateed man in a bustier, and others of various colors and sizes. "Lovely is different, weird, and wonderful." So reads the caption for a white girl with blonde hair and one blue and one brown eye! A simple book with lots of truth. (Picture book. 3-6) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
