Reviews and Comments

Leveled readers are books that are generally designed for new readers and English learners, which supposedly build language skills by making sure a book 'fits' a level. Personally, I find these leveled readers suspect, as they don't so much build independent readers but create stories that are generally dull for the sake of "being easy" and "using appropriate vocabulary."

This book reads like that, though it doesn't look like a traditional leveled reader because of the art. I've tried using this book with a range of young students, and they all say things that indicate to me that the book is 'speaking down' to them rather than treating them like actual readers. For example, a few kids who like repetition in books (and think it's fun because they can sing it like a song) find the repetition of asking them to do simple maths problems (4-1, 3-1, 2-1, 1-1) to be bothersome because they "already know how to do this."

I'm not going to say it's bad, but it's definitely just... very simplistic, even by the standards of children's books.

Leveled readers are books that are generally designed for new readers and English learners, which supposedly build language skills by making sure a book 'fits' a level. Personally, I find these leveled readers suspect, as they don't so much build independent readers but create stories that are generally dull for the sake of "being easy" and "using appropriate vocabulary."

This book reads like that, though it doesn't look like a traditional leveled reader because of the art. I've tried using this book with a range of young students, and they all say things that indicate to me that the book is 'speaking down' to them rather than treating them like actual readers. For example, a few kids who like repetition in books (and think it's fun because they can sing it like a song) find the repetition of asking them to do simple maths problems (4-1, 3-1, 2-1, 1-1) to be bothersome because they "already know how to do this."

I'm not going to say it's bad, but it's definitely just... very simplistic, even by the standards of children's books.

I'm just going to focus on the thing that I find obnoxious: I don't like when people trick others into eating foods they openly state that they don't like. I actually think that indicates a form of abuse that we see as being acceptable, and I label it as abuse because it's explicitly ignoring the body autonomy that we should all have. Children, like all people, should have a right to determine what they eat and do not eat. Tricking them into eating things because you call them by another name is just... I'm not a fan.

There are numerous reasons a person would choose to not eat something. Some people find certain textures appalling, while others can't handle certain tastes. Others just aren't ready to try certain foods, opting not to eat them at that moment. And those aren't even all the reasons that people don't like and choose to not eat certain foods.

Showing that there are no consequences (and, in fact, that you can impact someone in a 'positive' manner) by tricking them into eating food is... kind of abhorrent. It teaches kids that this is okay and that they should be able to do so. It teaches kids that they know what's best for everyone, that they should be able to make decisions for and coerce them.

This book seems initially harmless and is trying to play on the jokey tone that happens when you try to work with younger kids, but it's... just not a good look. We shouldn't be teaching kids to overstep boundaries, even if we find those boundaries to be absurd. If their sister doesn't like tomatoes, they shouldn't try to convince her to eat them; they should let her decide to eat them on her own. There may be a number of reasons why she's not eating them, and tricking her into doing it just shows they don't respect her, her boundaries, or her needs.

But that's not the lesson the protagonist learns. (And there's not even a lesson of teaching kids about healthy foods! Which could've been a better story, too.)

I hated this book from the introduction, and I hate how much of it glosses over the shared work of other people. This is a persistent theme, especially from books for kids that are developed for the US market. Individualism reigns supreme, to the point where we get New Great Person Theory instead of genuine feminism. It's so annoying.

This is even true of Marie Curie's (very short) story, which glosses over the fact that her husband did fight for her recognition. This is something that is directly contradictory to many women in science during and after the Industrial Revolution, like Mileva Einstein-Marie (who was just as brilliant as Albert... but he never ensured her work was acknowledged). This doesn't even negate the feminist slant the book pretends to have; it very literally would highlight that part of the reason we know about Marie Curie's contributions is because someone else saw and fought that injustice with her (and that person was, surprisingly, her own husband).

Others that get factors glossed over include people like Peggy Guggenheim. It's mentioned that she was born into a wealthy and known family, but it's also written in a way that makes it sound like she would've had the same uphill struggle that others would've had. It's also very strange because her contribution is "saving artwork from the Nazis" because she had a lot of money, though the book doesn't even really do much beyond say that they "disliked anything representing modern sensibilities." It's like there's a reason why... that gets skimmed over.

Another thing is that this says "from around the world," but it's worth pointing out that many of the stories are either about people from the US or people who immigrated to the US. Like, it's noticeable to a fault (out of 35 total stories, half of them involve someone who matches that description), which feels like an implication that many of these people need to immigrate to the US to be successful. The same is true in the "more dreamers" who don't get full-page stories (just tiny blurbs).

It seems like a lot of kids' biographies often get this treatment of being a bit too dull. They're styled as stories, but they're written in the same structure as if the author is adapting the Wikipedia article. The only difference is that, instead of a webpage, we get to have the entries spread across thirty-something pages of (generally lovely) illustrations. As such, it doesn't really provide a narrative for the person. They also seem to think you have to include as much time in the story as possible, rather than focusing on single events.

The text itself really doesn't have much interaction between the characters. They don't really highlight the relationships between Katherine Johnson and those around her. It's very much, with the exception of her father working so hard that they could move to a neighbourhood with a high school for Black kids, everything is presented as if Katherine was the only person who put in the work or effort.

But I doubt she was. And again, I hate these narratives always focusing on individual achievement rather than showing how people build upon the support of others. That is a lesson we're sorely missing in English-language books, especially those coming out of the US.

This book has a frustrating story structure. It's cute in showing the ways in which the titular character Iggy has an interest in architecture and building initially, but the overarching lesson is a bit wonky? Especially when combined with the other books in the series, which can create a really off-putting shift in tone.

The first thing that I noticed is that Iggy, unlike the girls in later installments of the series, gets to be a bit rambunctious. He gets to be a little naughty up to a point (such as how his mom thinks it's so cute that he built a tower of diapers and glue... until she realises that he used dirty diapers). He's also shown to be allowed to inconvenience other people with little or no consequence.

But then he goes to school! And his teacher outright says that "architecture doesn't belong in grade two," which immediately makes her seem irrational. And honestly, it is. As a teacher, you should be supporting the interests of your students (within reason) and not denigrating them, even if they're not things you like. (I don't like maths, but I wouldn't just outright toss it in the bin in front of the kids who do.)

But probably because this teacher makes an appearance across the series, she has to remain remotely likable. (And also because we continually try to instill a reverence for teachers.) So the author gives her a backstory to explain why she'd behave the way she did, and it was because she was traumatised by being locked in an elevator. And while that is a thing that would cause someone to act in a manner that appears outwardly irrational, they just gloss on over it and continue the story in a manner that means the teacher needs to Just Get Over It.

So going on a school trip, they visit an island and the bridge they use to walk there collapses. The teacher faints, and the kids build a new bridge out of random stuff (like shoes). This proves the teacher wrong about architecture, proving that it has a use and value! So now the kids can learn about it in school because she was shown the power of a child being interested in architecture!

It sounds like it bothers me that an adult (especially a teacher) would be proven wrong, but I actually think books (among other media) should do better about teaching children that their opinions are valuable to society and that adults should take them into consideration without just flatly denying them. This book doesn't do this because there's no direct confrontation, and I feel like something in that vein would've been far better as a message than indirectly having to prove the teacher wrong.

This book does something that the others don't: It actually engages with a disability. Sort of.

The titular character, Aaron, struggles with dyslexia (though this isn't made explicit in the text of the story—it's only made explicit in the author's note). In the illustrations, it shows a lot of the words as being backwards and doesn't really engage with common forms of dyslexia.

It also doesn't do much with the characters other than have Aaron work really hard to overcome his struggle without having any of the characters doing much to collectively work with him. I know it's a book with text, but it's still reinforcing literacy as an end-all-be-all skill. This isn't to say literacy isn't useful, but it should try to highlight that our hyperfocus on literacy as being a core necessity to exist and how there are people who will struggle with that.

Perhaps it's because I am dyslexic that I find it infuriating. Perhaps it's because I had to struggle to learn coping mechanisms in a world not designed for people like me, and I don't want to see others endure that when we could shift the way the world works. But I'm not a fan of these texts for kids and their desires to constantly push a "we can do anything we want to overcome everything" narrative when that's not something we need to do.

We could have a different world where we all work together collectively and use all of our skills together, which would help us a range of different skills! We could have a bunch of different tools... But we continually write narratives for children that are purely unimaginative and reinforce that everyone should do everything for themselves, that we should persevere with minimal assistance or with very few strategies... It's so uncreative.

This book has a frustrating story structure. It's cute in showing the ways in which the titular character Iggy has an interest in architecture and building initially, but the overarching lesson is a bit wonky? Especially when combined with the other books in the series, which can create a really off-putting shift in tone.

The first thing that I noticed is that Iggy, unlike the girls in the series, gets to be a bit rambunctious. He gets to be a little naughty up to a point (such as how his mom thinks it's so cute that he built a tower of diapers and glue... until she realises that he used dirty diapers). He's also shown to be allowed to inconvenience other people with little or no consequence.

But then he goes to school! And his teacher outright says that "architecture doesn't belong in grade two," which immediately makes her seem irrational. And honestly, it is. As a teacher, you should be supporting the interests of your students (within reason) and not denigrating them, even if they're not things you like. (I don't like maths, but I wouldn't just outright toss it in the bin in front of the kids who do.)

But because this teacher makes an appearance across the series, she has to remain remotely likable. So the author gives her a backstory to explain why she'd behave the way she did, and it was because she was traumatised by being locked in an elevator. And while that is a thing that would cause someone to act in a manner that appears outwardly irrational, they just gloss on over it and continue the story in a manner that means the teacher needs to Just Get Over It.

So going on a school trip, they visit an island and the bridge they use to walk there collapses. The teacher faints, and the kids build a new bridge out of random stuff (like shoes). This proves the teacher wrong about architecture, proving that it has a use and value! So now the kids can learn about it in school because she was shown the power of a child being interested in architecture!

It sounds like it bothers me that an adult (especially a teacher) would be proven wrong, but I actually think books (among other media) should do better about teaching children that their opinions are valuable to society and that adults should take them into consideration without just flatly denying them. This book doesn't do this because there's no direct confrontation, and I feel like something in that vein would've been far better as a message than indirectly having to prove the teacher wrong.

This book has a frustrating story structure. It's cute in showing the ways in which the titular character Iggy has an interest in architecture and building initially, but the overarching lesson is a bit wonky? Especially when combined with the other books in the series, which can create a really off-putting shift in tone.

The first thing that I noticed is that Iggy, unlike the girls in the series, gets to be a bit rambunctious. He gets to be a little naughty up to a point (such as how his mom thinks it's so cute that he built a tower of diapers and glue... until she realises that he used dirty diapers). He's also shown to be allowed to inconvenience other people with little or no consequence.

But then he goes to school! And his teacher outright says that "architecture doesn't belong in grade two," which immediately makes her seem irrational. And honestly, it is. As a teacher, you should be supporting the interests of your students (within reason) and not denigrating them, even if they're not things you like. (I don't like maths, but I wouldn't just outright toss it in the bin in front of the kids who do.)

But because this teacher makes an appearance across the series, she has to remain remotely likable. So the author gives her a backstory to explain why she'd behave the way she did, and it was because she was traumatised by being locked in an elevator. And while that is a thing that would cause someone to act in a manner that appears outwardly irrational, they just gloss on over it and continue the story in a manner that means the teacher needs to Just Get Over It.

So going on a school trip, they visit an island and the bridge they use to walk there collapses. The teacher faints, and the kids build a new bridge out of random stuff (like shoes). This proves the teacher wrong about architecture, proving that it has a use and value! So now the kids can learn about it in school because she was shown the power of a child being interested in architecture!

It sounds like it bothers me that an adult (especially a teacher) would be proven wrong, but I actually think books (among other media) should do better about teaching children that their opinions are valuable to society and that adults should take them into consideration without just flatly denying them. This book doesn't do this because there's no direct confrontation, and I feel like something in that vein would've been far better as a message than indirectly having to prove the teacher wrong.