There will be times when you walk into a room and no one there is quite like you.
There are many reasons to feel different. Maybe it’s how you look or talk, or where you’re from; maybe it’s what you eat, or something just as random. It’s not easy to take those first steps into a place where nobody really knows you yet, but somehow you do it.
Jacqueline Woodson’s lyrical text and Rafael López’s dazzling art reminds us that we all feel like outsiders sometimes-and how brave it is that we go forth anyway. And that sometimes, when we reach out and begin to share our stories, others will be happy to meet us halfway.
A black girl with curly hair enters a classroom and doesn’t see anyone who looks like her. She feels left out when she realizes that everyone else’s family traveled for the summer while she was at home babysitting. A boy named Rigoberto is laughed at when he speaks in his native tongue. An Asian girl feels less-than because no one understands the delicious food her mother makes for her school lunch. These are the interwoven narratives in The Day You Begin, a picture book about recognizing your differences, finding your place in the world, and beginning to tell the stories only you can.
Ms. Woodson is the 2018-2019 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature and a National Book Award winner, and it shows. The Day You Begin is poignant, earnest, poetic, and needed. Written to and for children whole feel separate and apart because of their differences (due to race, class, language, or culture), this picture book tells children 1) that they are brave, 2) that they can share their unique stories (and the world will make a place for them when they do), 3) that they will find themselves and find friends, and 4) that there is beauty in similarity AND difference.
On the writing itself: Woodson’s similes are reflected seamlessly in López’s art. Words like a song are reflected in musical notes on the page. Getting picked last is depicted in every heart-wrenching detail. The thoughts that kids tuck away so that they will hurt less are here, on the page, and it is enough to make you cry… until you realize that every difference and moment of other-ness is being turned into an opportunity to connect, in vibrant tones. Woodson’s words and López’s mix of textures, colors, and mediums are the perfect fit for this book.
"There will be times when the world feels like a place that you’re standing all the way outside of…"
In all, The Day You Begin is an affirming, heartfelt, and brilliant picture book for everyone and all-ages, but especially for children who feel isolated and different (and who hasn’t felt that way, one day or another?).
Recommended for: all picture book collections, classrooms, storytimes, and for children ages 6-9 need the encouragement that our differences make us special, in the best ways.
1 comment:
It's definitely hard to believe in a better world some days, lately.
But books are proven to help make people more empathetic and open to people with different experiences. Sharing these books is a drop in the bucket, but at least it is something.
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