There Must Be More Than That!

September 7, 2020
In an era specializing in dark predictions, Yoshitake (I Can Be Anything) gives young readers a new way of thinking about what’s to come. “Our future is doomed,” an older brother growls to his little sister one rainy day. “By the time we grow up, things are going to be terrible.” The girl’s grandmother, however, counsels cool-headedness. “Grown-ups act like they can predict the future,” she says, but it’s never limited to one or two choices: “There must be more than that!” These words are all the encouragement the girl needs to visualize possibilities. Maybe, in the future, “someone always catches the strawberry you drop” (a robot skids under the table, bowl outstretched), or “your room has a zero-gravity switch” (brother and sister bob gleefully in mid-air). “Will I have to put up with that bully forever?” she wonders. “Nope! He might be abducted by aliens tomorrow.” It’s easy to smile at Yoshitake’s square-headed characters and endless stream of lighthearted thought experiments in this gently goofy book, which offers a hopeful corrective to grown-up pessimism. Ages 5–8.

January 1, 2021

K-Gr 2-A young girl is thoughtfully looking through a window on a rainy day, contemplating that grown-ups are sometimes mistaken, especially if they tell you that a sunny day awaits. Then, her brother arrives, predicting that the future is doomed, and providing vivid examples of alien invasions, plagues, and wars. The girl, and the narrative, arrives at the conclusion that there are surprises, choices, and different alternatives because "there are lots of possible futures." Yoshitake offers a way for readers to consider the future, unknowable, with better alternatives. In a small size font, the one-to-five lines of text accompanies the characters in this book as the expressive illustrations depict the plot and the mood of the characters. Subtle clues-the grandmother's bed, the homogenous look of the characters, with pale skin and dark hair, a terrible scene of a destroyed city and people with gas masks, a couple of clothing accessories on the cover-seem to set this in Japan, but the story has a compelling universality. The illustrations are mostly colored contour drawings that are barely supported by a background, yet they work well with the overall artistic setting of this book. In addition, the use of subtractive colors and tertiary colors are harmoniously placed over winter white pages providing a unique design. This picture book stresses a positive mindset as one answer to times of uncertainty that may be stressing young children. VERDICT Relevant, charming, this flips the mindset of a limiting binary choice and renders the multitudes of possibility in a very accessible, childlike way.-Kathia Ibacache, Univ. of Colorado Boulder

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Starred review from September 15, 2020
A child who doesn't like her choices discovers the revolutionary promise of thinking outside the box. Having heard from her big brother (who got it from a grown-up) that the future holds nothing but hunger, disease, gloom, and doom, a young child rushes to her grandma for comfort. Comfort she gets, as Grandma assures her that grown-ups don't know everything and there are many possible futures. This sets her imagination off and running, envisioning futures in which, for instance, "every Saturday is Christmas," a certain pesky bully gets abducted by aliens, or "maybe I'll fall in love and I won't even care that I was bullied!" The line of thought leads to ruminations about false dichotomies. Perhaps something isn't just good or bad. Maybe there are more options than simply loving or hating someone. ("I lovate you, Daddy!" she exclaims experimentally to a confused parent.) These deep thoughts come home to roost (so to speak) when her mom asks whether she'd like her egg boiled or fried--which sets off a positive flurry of possible futures for the egg. Yoshitake creates a vivacious cast, using dots, tiny dashes, subtle body angles, and expressive gestures to great effect. The figures in this Japanese import's simple cartoon illustrations present as Asian, wearing casual dress and shown in minimally detailed surroundings. Long thoughts and fresh heart for readers feeling helpless in the face of scary futures. (Picture book. 6-10)

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