Jacqueline Woodson (www.jacquelinewoodson.com) is the recipient of a 2023 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a 2020 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award, the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the 2018 Children’s Literature Legacy Award. She was the 2018–2019 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, and in 2015, she was named the Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. She received the 2014 National Book Award for her New York Times bestselling memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, which was also a recipient of the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor, the NAACP Image Award, and a Sibert Honor. She wrote the adult books Red at the Bone, a New York Times bestseller, and Another Brooklyn, a 2016 National Book Award finalist. Born in Columbus, Ohio, Jacqueline grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, and Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from college with a B.A. in English. She is the author of dozens of award-winning books for young adults, middle graders, and children; among her many accolades, she is a four-time Newbery Honor winner, a four-time National Book Award finalist, and a three-time Coretta Scott King Award winner. Her books include Coretta Scott King Award winner Before the Ever After; New York Times bestsellers The Day You Begin and Harbor Me; The Other Side, Each Kindness, Caldecott Honor book Coming On Home Soon; Newbery Honor winners Feathers, Show Way, and After Tupac and D Foster; and Miracle's Boys, which received the LA Times Book Prize and the Coretta Scott King Award. Jacqueline is also a recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement for her contributions to young adult literature and a two-time winner of the Jane Addams Children's Book Award. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.

Rafael López won Pura Belpré medals for Drum Dream Girl and Book Fiesta, and has also received three Pura Belpré honors, two Américas Book Awards, and the 2017 Tomás Rivera Children's Book Award and Society of Illustrators Original Art Silver Medal. His work has been featured in Communication Arts, American Illustration Annual, Graphic Design USA and Huffington Post. He's a founder of San Diego's Urban Art Trail movement, created seven US Postal Stamps, and created official posters for the '08 and '12 Obama-Biden campaigns. - (Penguin Putnam)

Booklist Reviews

A girl with honey-brown skin and curly hair waits outside a classroom: "There will be times when you walk into a room and no one there is quite like you." The omniscient narrator continues that sometimes others won't understand your words or might turn up their noses at your lunch. But then a small thing—say, you and a classmate have siblings who share the same name—changes everything up. Woodson catches the uncertainty, even fear, that comes with new situations. But her lyrical language also captures the moment when confidence sparks and friendships are born. In one instance, the girl feels different because her classmates have brought souvenirs from their travels to France, India, and South Carolina, while she stayed home and read books. Of course, books can take you anywhere, a point well made, though not all readers will relate to the idea of far-flung travel. The bold, bright artwork features a diverse cast of kids, all with huge eyes. The important message plays out in a striking design that mixes the everyday with flights of fancy. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Woodson, a recent National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, is one of kidlit's brightest stars, and this should find lots of eager hands. Preschool-Grade 1. Copyright 2018 Booklist Reviews.

Horn Book Guide Reviews

Venezuelan immigrant Rigoberto looks crestfallen when the class laughs at his name; other classmates feel left out when friends make fun of their lunch foods. And the (unnamed) African American protagonist has trouble finding her voice when her classmates recount their summer vacations until she realizes books have afforded her boundless travel. Woodson's story about feeling like an outcast values literacy, reading, and imagination. Lspez's illustrations feature vivid, brilliant colors. Copyright 2018 Horn Book Guide Reviews.

Horn Book Magazine Reviews

What will it take for a child who feels different to share her stories? Woodson's picture book, told in second-person and (mostly) future tense, tells readers that sometimes they will feel like outcasts: "There will be times when you walk into a room and no one there is quite like you." The classroom of a young African American girl with a big, curly afro is such a place. The girl's new classmate Rigoberto, recently moved from Venezuela, looks crestfallen when the class laughs at his name, but he recovers when his teacher makes his "name and homeland sound like flowers blooming the first bright notes of a song." Other students feel left out when friends make fun of their lunch foods as "strange" and "unfamiliar," or when no one chooses them for playground games. The story keeps returning to the original African American protagonist, who has trouble finding her voice when others recount their summer vacations full of domestic and international travel; she had to babysit her sister all summer. She finally realizes that the books she has read and shared with her sister have afforded her boundless travel. Like Woodson's memoir for older readers Brown Girl Dreaming (rev. 9/14), this story places great value on literacy, reading, and imagination. The matte-finished pages feature illustrations in vivid, brilliant colors, with repeated appearances of flying birds and lush, twining vines and flowers. michelle h. martin Copyright 2018 Horn Book Magazine Reviews.

Kirkus Reviews

School-age children encounter and overcome feelings of difference from their peers in the latest picture book from Woodson. This nonlinear story centers on Angelina, with big curly hair and brown skin, as she begins the school year with a class share-out of summer travels. Text and illustrations effectively work together to convey her feelings of otherness as she reflects on her own summer spent at home: "What good is this / when others were flying," she ponders while leaning out her city window forlornly watching birds fly past to seemingly faraway places. López's incorporation of a ruler for a door, table, and tree into the illustrations creatively extends the metaphor of measuring up to others. Three other children—Rigoberto, a recent immigrant from Venezuela; a presumably Korean girl with her "too strange" lunch of kimchi, meat, and rice; and a lonely white boy in what seems to be a suburb—experience more-direct teasing for their outsider status. A bright jewel-toned palette and clever details, including a literal reflection of a better future, reveal hope and pride in spite of the taunting. This reassuring, lyrical book feels like a big hug from a wise aunt as she imparts the wisdom of the world in order to calm trepidatious young children: One of these things is not like the other, and that is actually what makes all the difference. A must-have book about the power of one's voice and the friendships that emerge when you are yourself. (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright Kirkus 2018 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly Reviews

Woodson (Brown Girl Dreaming) imagines being "an only" in the classroom—what it's like to be the only one with an accent ("No one understands the way words curl from your mouth"), the only one who stayed home during summer vacation ("What good is this/ when other students were flying/ and sailing"), the only one whose lunch box is filled with food "too strange or too unfamiliar for others to love as you do." Without prescribing sympathy, Woodson's poetic lines give power to each child's experience. She describes the moment when the girl who didn't go on vacation speaks her truth, her "voice stronger than it was a minute ago." She has cared for her sister all summer, she tells her classmates, reading and telling stories: "Even though we were right on our block it was like/ we got to go EVERYWHERE." And "all at once" in the seconds after sharing one's story, something shifts, common ground is revealed, and "the world opens itself up a little wider/ to make some space for you." López (Drum Dream Girl) paints the book's array of children as students in the same classroom; patterns and colors on the children's clothing and the growing things around them fill the spreads with life. Woodson's gentle, lilting story and López's artistry create a stirring portrait of the courage it takes to be oneself: "There will be times when you walk into a room and no one there is quite like you until the day you begin/ to share your stories." Ages 5–8. Author's agent: Kathleen Nishimoto, William Morris Endeavor. Illustrator's agent: Stefanie Von Borstel, Full Circle. (Aug.)

School Library Journal Reviews

K-Gr 2-A beautiful and inclusive story that encourages children to find the beauty in their own lives and share it with the world. A young girl with brown skin and curly black hair stays home through the summer to watch over her younger sister while her classmates travel to distant lands. A young boy from Venezuela arrives in his new school and finds the children in his class do not speak his language. Another child brings a lunch that her classmates find too strange while another isn't physically able to keep up with the play of other children. Each child feels very alone until they begin to share their stories and discover that it is nearly always possible to find someone a little like you. López's vibrant illustrations bring the characters' hidden and unspoken thoughts to light with fantastic, swirling color. Shifting hues and textures across the page convey their deep loneliness and then slowly transition into bright hopeful possibilities. Full-bleed illustrations on every page are thick with collaged patterns and textures that pair perfectly with melodic prose that begs to be read aloud. Though the story focuses on four singular experiences, there's an essential acknowledgment that everyone will experience a time when no one is quite like them, when they can't find their voice, or when they feel very alone. Woodson's superlative text sees each character turns that moment of desolation into an opportunity to be brave and find hope in what they have in common. VERDICT This masterful story deserves a place in every library.—Laken Hottle, Providence Community Library