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quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Everyone has pronouns.
We need them to communicate!
Some pronouns you use every day, others may be less familiar.
So what do you do when you meet someone new? It’s simple, just ask: “What are your pronouns?”
Let’s celebrate our different identities and help make the world a more welcoming place for everyone.
Chris Ayala-Kronos is an experienced children’s book editor and writer. Melita Tirado is a experienced illustrator. This is a well-intentioned but ultimately mis-firing picture book that’s aimed at introducing young readers to the use of pronouns but while Tirado’s illustrations are vibrant and diverse, the text itself is trying to do too much and risks confusing with a giant information dump at the end that has no context or explanation.
I don’t have an issue with picture books tackling the topic of pronouns. They’re a perfectly normal part of everyday life and as such worth introducing to younger readers just as you’d introduce colours or numbers or different animals. You can see the good intentions lying behind this book and I liked the way it emphasises that it is perfectly okay to ask someone what their pronouns are and then Tirado’s illustrations do a fantastic job of demonstrating the wide range of people who may use various pronouns.
The book is fine in terms of explaining she, he, they, her, him, them, hers, his and theirs. The problem is that right at the end Ayala-Kronos and Tirado suddenly introduce ideas like xe, ze and co and there is zero explanation of where they come from or what they mean. I’m considerably older than the target readership and I struggle to understand what those terms mean so it would have been useful to have some context to them so that any grown-ups reading along with their young readers can have a conversation about it. As it is, you instead get a big table setting out these different terms with zero explanation for it and, in my view, it’s just too much and too confusing.
Ultimately I think there is some useful information in here and as a way of introducing the subject, it’s fine but at the end it tries to do too much in a way that I think risks diluting its impact and undermining the effect on readers.
The Verdict:
Chris Ayala-Kronos is an experienced children’s book editor and writer. Melita Tirado is a experienced illustrator. This is a well-intentioned but ultimately mis-firing picture book that’s aimed at introducing young readers to the use of pronouns but while Tirado’s illustrations are vibrant and diverse, the text itself is trying to do too much and risks confusing with a giant information dump at the end that has no context or explanation.
Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
Everyone has pronouns.
We need them to communicate!
Some pronouns you use every day, others may be less familiar.
So what do you do when you meet someone new? It’s simple, just ask: “What are your pronouns?”
Let’s celebrate our different identities and help make the world a more welcoming place for everyone.
Chris Ayala-Kronos is an experienced children’s book editor and writer. Melita Tirado is a experienced illustrator. This is a well-intentioned but ultimately mis-firing picture book that’s aimed at introducing young readers to the use of pronouns but while Tirado’s illustrations are vibrant and diverse, the text itself is trying to do too much and risks confusing with a giant information dump at the end that has no context or explanation.
I don’t have an issue with picture books tackling the topic of pronouns. They’re a perfectly normal part of everyday life and as such worth introducing to younger readers just as you’d introduce colours or numbers or different animals. You can see the good intentions lying behind this book and I liked the way it emphasises that it is perfectly okay to ask someone what their pronouns are and then Tirado’s illustrations do a fantastic job of demonstrating the wide range of people who may use various pronouns.
The book is fine in terms of explaining she, he, they, her, him, them, hers, his and theirs. The problem is that right at the end Ayala-Kronos and Tirado suddenly introduce ideas like xe, ze and co and there is zero explanation of where they come from or what they mean. I’m considerably older than the target readership and I struggle to understand what those terms mean so it would have been useful to have some context to them so that any grown-ups reading along with their young readers can have a conversation about it. As it is, you instead get a big table setting out these different terms with zero explanation for it and, in my view, it’s just too much and too confusing.
Ultimately I think there is some useful information in here and as a way of introducing the subject, it’s fine but at the end it tries to do too much in a way that I think risks diluting its impact and undermining the effect on readers.
The Verdict:
Chris Ayala-Kronos is an experienced children’s book editor and writer. Melita Tirado is a experienced illustrator. This is a well-intentioned but ultimately mis-firing picture book that’s aimed at introducing young readers to the use of pronouns but while Tirado’s illustrations are vibrant and diverse, the text itself is trying to do too much and risks confusing with a giant information dump at the end that has no context or explanation.
Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
