PB Pick: All the Greatness in You

If you’ve got children in your life, you probably want to remind them just how awesome and full of potential they are.

If you’re looking for a book to help you do just that, a great candidate is ALL THE GREATNESS IN YOU by Tameka Fryer Brown and Alleanna Harris. This recent release from Farrar Straus Giroux begins:

Look at you.
I can’t believe
how quickly you have grown.

Just yesterday, we did the things
you now do on your own.

It then goes on to enumerate — in rhyme — all the ways this kid is growing, learning, changing, doing and becoming under the loving eyes of family and an extended community of people who care.

Every young reader will be able to find something they can relate to in this family’s activities which range from the daily tasks of getting ready in the morning, going to school, cooking and cleaning, to playground visits, sports, gardening, dancing, reading, star-gazing, crafts, holidays and church choir.

It’s an ode to all the things done well and a reminder that sometimes, “your best is enough” even if it falls short of what you might have hoped for. With this reassuring and hopeful text plus the colorful, warm, relatable illustrations, this picture book is a hug from adults to kids in their life.

And, really, what more could you want?

I’ve admired Tameka’s books for a long time. Her many titles include BROWN BABY LULLABYE, TWELVE DINGING DOORBELLS and THAT FLAG, which won a Charlotte Huck Honor Award at this year’s National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) convention. And, I finally got to meet Tameka in person at the convention last month in Boston.

More than 7,000 teachers, authors and book people attended, so the odds of randomly running into one particular person are small. But, one night, when I was eating dinner at a restaurant, I noticed someone waving at me from another table. It was Tameka. The restaurant was crowded, but we managed this photo.

And Tameka is just as nice in person as you think she’d be after reading her books.

So … I hope you get the chance to share ALL THE GREATNESS IN YOU with all the kids you care about.

AN UNRELATED HOLIDAY NOTE

If you’re buying holiday gifts and have room in your budget to buy a book for a child who needs one, please consider supporting The Madison Reading Project. They provide more than 100,000 books to Wisconsin children each year.

And, they’ve made a bookshop.org wishlist featuring my titles. If you buy a book from this list, it will be sent directly to the Madison Reading Project. They’ll get it to a kid who needs it, and you’ll get a tax deduction and the satisfaction of knowing you’re helping raise a new generation of readers.

And, of course, you can donate to the MRP at any time of year, not just the holidays.