{"id":41943,"date":"2022-11-20T23:00:38","date_gmt":"2022-11-21T04:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=41943"},"modified":"2022-11-20T23:00:38","modified_gmt":"2022-11-21T04:00:38","slug":"review-of-like-by-annie-barrows-and-leo-espinosa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=41943","title":{"rendered":"Review of Like, by Annie Barrows and Leo Espinosa"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Like<\/em><\/p>\n

written by Annie Barrows
\nillustrated by Leo Espinosa<\/p>\n

Chronicle Books, 2022. 40 pages.
\nReview written November 10, 2022, from a library book
\nStarred Review<\/p>\n

This picture book delighted me so much, I immediately found someone in the office to show it to. (This isn’t as easy as when I worked in a branch with other youth services staff, but it can still be done.) The book is bright and colorful, surprising and funny, and it has a great message.<\/p>\n

Here’s how the book begins:<\/p>\n

Hello.<\/p>\n

You are you, and I am I. We are people.
\nAlso known as humans. This makes us
\ndifferent from most of the things on Earth.<\/p>\n

For instance, tin cans.<\/p>\n

We are not at all like tin cans.
\nWe are not shaped like tin cans.
\nWe cannot hold tomato sauce like tin cans.<\/p>\n

If you open up our lids, nothing good happens.<\/p>\n

We are not at all like tin cans.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The kid-narrator goes on to compare us with a swimming pool. We are a little more like a swimming pool, since we have water and chemicals and dirt inside us. But there are some big differences.<\/p>\n

The book goes on to compare the reader with a mushroom, an excavator, and a hyena.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of ways we are like hyenas, and those are listed in fun ways. But I like the page that talks about how we are different from hyenas:<\/p>\n

They don’t know when their birthday is,
\nand if you invited a hyena over to your house next Thursday, it wouldn’t come.
\nHyenas don’t make plans.<\/p>\n

Which is fine, because if a hyena did come to your house, it might try to eat your baby brother.<\/p>\n

So we are like hyenas in some ways,
\nbut if you were a hyena,
\nyou wouldn’t be like you are now.
\nAnd I would run away if I saw you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But the rest of the book talks about how much humans are alike. We’re not exactly alike, but we’re much more alike than other things on earth.<\/p>\n

Even if I eat raspberry Jell-O with bananas in it,
\nand you would never ever eat that in a million years,
\nI am more like you than a mushroom.<\/p>\n

Even if you speak a language I don’t speak
\nyou are more like me than a hyena.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the book winds up by pointing out lots of people of different ages and shapes and looks and points out that we are all very much alike.<\/p>\n

I am more like you than I am like most of the things on Earth.<\/p>\n

I’m glad.<\/p>\n

I’d rather be like you than like a mushroom.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An utterly wonderful book.<\/p>\n

anniebarrows.com<\/a>
\nchroniclekids.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Picture_Books\/like.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

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