The Sound of Kindness

The Sound of Kindness
By: Amy Ludwig VanDerwater
Illustrated by: Teresa Martinez
Release date: June 13, 2023

This heartwarming book touches on the themes of kindness and socio-emotional resonance, and the idea that our words matter.Follow an adult and child as they explore their neighborhood, listening for the sounds of kindness. Words of friendship, gratitude, support, generosity, and love...we can see and hear them if we try. What will you hear if you take a kindness walk?

Kindness is all around us everyday, if we know where to look--and listen!--for it. This book is a gentle and encouraging acknowledgment of how much it matters to be kind...in our families, friendships, and communities.

I loved the illustrations in this beautiful story, they kept the eyes busy even as the short story kept you pushing along. It was short but held lots of meaning. The last page of the story held this quote: we hear the sound of kindness when we listen to the day. We fill our world with kindness with the words we choose to say." I think it is something that both parents and little kiddos will like. One thing I especially loved about this book is the reader's note at the end, it gives several suggestions on walks you could take with your own children and ways you could take the book into your own life.

In my opinion, this book would be perfect for younger children and those who need a reminder to look for the kind in the world.

Bear

Bear

By Been Queen

Illustrated by Joe Todd-Stanton

Published September 2, 2020 

My rating 5 out of 5 stars 

Bear is a guide dog for the blind, and he would do anything for his best friend and owner, Patrick. But when Bear suddenly loses his own vision, he worries that he has lost his purpose! Determined to protect Patrick at all costs, Bear sets out on a quest to regain his eyesight. Along the way Bear will learn to tap into his other senses and begin to see the world from a new perspective that is at times more rich and colorful than the world he's always known. 

Writer Ben Queen (Disney/Pixar's Cars 2 and Cars 3) draws inspiration from real life stories of how memory can influence how we recall our own surroundings, and artist Joe Todd-Stanton (A Mouse Called Julian) lovingly renders an unforgettable story of one dog's grand adventure from the wooded countryside to the heart of Manhattan where he encounters new friends and discovers his true calling.

This is an illustrated story of a guide dog for a blind man. All his life, Bear (the dog) has known that he's going to have a job, he's been trained specifically to help his best friend and owner. 

One day, he wakes up without his own vision and is afraid he's lost not only his job, but his purpose in life. In this book, we follow Bear through his amazing adventure as he learns to use his other senses and "see" the world around him from a different view-point. 

The author and illustrator work together just beautifully. Bear "sees" the world around him in his mind, like the bear den he stumbles into is a den with an armchair and fireplace. It is simply a book you will have to read and see to understand. 

I was able to borrow this book from my local library using the Hoopla service, but it is for sale, available on Kindle or hardcover.

I Really Didn't Think This Through

I Really Didn't Think This Through: Tales From My So-Called Adult Life

By: Beth Evans
Published May 1, 2018
My Review 4 out of 5 stars

Popular Instagram artist Beth Evans tackles a range of issues - from whimsical musings to deeply personal struggle - in this imaginative anti-guide to being your own person.

Welcome to Adulthood! Hey, wait...where are you going?

Did you ever wish your best friend - the person you would trust with your innermost secrets, the person whose wisdom and comfort you seek in times of stress or self-doubt - could draw? Popular Instagram illustrator Beth Evans has made a name for herself writing comics and sharing her personal experiences on life as she enters and navigates adulthood. Her ability to find humor in common situations around love, social anxieties, depression, and work has created a cultlike following from her 217k Instagram fans.

Like Mindy Kaling meets Hyperbole and a Half, I Really Didn’t Think This Through gets at the heart of what makes life both so challenging and so joyful - figuring out how to be a person in the world. This book is a compendium of Beth’s collected wisdom and stories, interwoven with her tremendously popular and loveable illustrations. The book is a wonderful mix of fun (playful meditations on the band Rush and international pen pals) and thoughtful (Beth delves into her personal history with obsessive compulsive disorder and depression while commiserating on topics like dating and credit card shame) all with a simple candor that anyone from a teen to their grandparent can relate to. Through all of her experiences, Beth manages to extract valuable lessons, and the book is replete with friendly advice about caring for yourself, getting help no matter what your problems are, and embracing what makes you happy. Beth is a compelling storyteller, her drawings picking up where her words leave off, creating an approachable and immersive experience for the listener. Beth’s work feels like a hug from your best friend. And like a best friend, she’s here to say, “You got this!”

This is a beautiful reminder that we don't have to have things all together to be an adult. The author copes with OCD and anxiety and it spoke to me. I also struggle with anxiety and many of the pictures felt like they were drawn just for me. The chapter on self-love was really something I needed to read this week. A couple of my favorite quotes: "Sleep is just death, without the commitment." and "self-love is hard" - the more detailed quote that made me laugh out loud with its truth was actually: "how can I, a complete and total garbage can of awfulness, find it in the trash that is me to love not only myself but other people? Its a tall order for anyone, especially someone with low self-esteem."

The Words In My Hands

Title: The Words In My Hands 

By: Asphyxia 

Published: November 30, 2021

My rating: four of five stars

I read this book to complete a prompt in the Story Graph Genre Challenge: A contemporary or literary fiction novel with disability rep. 

Part coming of age, part call to action, this fast-paced #ownvoices novel about a Deaf teenager is a unique and inspiring exploration of what it means to belong.

Set in an ominously prescient near future, The Words in My Hands is the story of Piper: sixteen, smart, artistic, and rebellious, she’s struggling to conform to what her mom wants—for her to be ‘normal,’ to pass as hearing, and get a good job. But in a time of food scarcity, environmental collapse, and political corruption, Piper has other things on her mind—like survival.

Deaf since the age of three, Piper has always been told that she needs to compensate in a world that puts those who can hear above everyone else. But when she meets Marley, a whole new world opens up—one where Deafness is something to celebrate rather than hide, and where resilience and hope are created by taking action, building a community, and believing in something better.

Published to rave reviews as Future Girl in Australia (Allen & Unwin, Sept. 2020), this unforgettable story is told through a visual extravaganza of text, paint, collage, and drawings that bring Piper’s journey vividly to life. Insightful, hopeful, and empowering, The Words in My Hands is very much a novel for our turbulent times.

This was a beautiful book, both the writing and the illustrations. 

If you borrow this book from a library (or a friend) make sure that you read either a hard-copy or read it digitally on a device that allows you to see the beautiful colors of these illustrations. I love how this story shows the importance of Deaf culture to a growing individual. You follow Piper who has been raised by a hearing mother who placed high importance on her learning to speak "properly" and learn how to lip read. 

When she meets Marley, the son of a deaf parent. He was raised learning to both speak and sign. As she spends more time with Marley and his mother, she begins to learn not only sign language but also how the Deaf community comes together and supports each other. 

During this whole storyline, there is so much more about food scarcity, political corruption and censorship. It makes for a very compelling story. One that had me up at 3 in the morning trying to figure out what was going to happen with Piper, Marley and their families.