Review by Booklist Review
No truer words have been written--people are, in fact, weird, and the precocious narrator is well-aware of this fact. An ungendered, red-headed child observes the world around them, noting the peculiarity of things that seem to invert expectations, addressing the reader directly to note all the oddities around them. From a classmate that claims to be a magician ("but if he was, why would he need to go to school?") to folks fixated on their visage in mirrors at the gym to closing one's eyes when afraid to tethering a turtle on walks despite its slow gait, all sorts of weird things are acknowledged, many oxymoronic in nature. All in all, the narrator notes that weird is all around, and therefore, it just might be normal to be weird. A Canadian import translated from Portuguese, the work features saturated, full-page illustrations "rendered with various dry media, watercolor, and wet charcoal digital brushes" with a variety of amusing scenes to supplement the child's quirky observations. Great for reading aloud to observant kids full of questions about the world.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
With exasperation and, ultimately, appreciation, a child considers various puzzling people in Brazilian American author Santos' tale, translated from Portuguese. "Have you ever noticed the world is full of weird people?" asks the pale-skinned, redheaded narrator while gazing out the living room window at passersby. For starters: "At school, there is a boy who tells everyone he is a real magician. But if he was, why would he need to go to school? Weird." Here's another one: "My neighbor's dad thinks that people will start talking about him if his garden and lawn don't look perfect. But if they look perfect, aren't people going to talk about him exactly because of that? Weird." The narrator furnishes several more examples; young readers will be amused by these observations (which play like jokes) and delighted to be able to see beyond the protagonist's literal-mindedness. Taken together, the story's yuks make a point that crystalizes when the narrator's book-length bewilderment ("Weird") finally leads to a mind-opening epiphany: "Could it be normal to be weird? If so, would it be weird to be normal?" Sobral's mixed-media illustrations, which largely depict urban scenes populated with a multigenerational, diverse cast, are dominated by the less-often-used colors in the crayon box (you know: the weird ones). The images have an artfully topsy-turvy quality, reflecting the endearingly discombobulated narrator's attempts to make sense of the world. A different kind of dare-to-be-different book.(Picture book. 5-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
