The Year We Learned to Fly
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AGE
Children's - Kindergarten-3rd Grade, Age 5-8
READABILITY
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32 p. ;
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PUBLISHER
Make Way For Books
Warm collage illustrations perfectly complement the layers of this story. On the surface, two siblings, bored from sitting inside trying to entertain themselves (hinting of quarantine experience to which many young children can now relate), are encouraged by their grandmother to "learn to fly" -- to use their imaginations for escape. On a secondary layer, the grandmother shares the creative fortitude she had learned from "the people who came before. They were aunts and uncles...who were brought here on huge ships, their wrists and ankles cuffed in iron...but, my grandmother said, nobody can ever cuff your beautiful and brilliant mind." An elegant way to show how difficulty can be transformed with curiosity, imagination, and good choices.
Publisher Summary
Jacqueline Woodson and Rafael López's highly anticipated companion to their #1 New York Times bestseller The Day You Begin illuminates the power in each of us to face challenges with confidence. On a dreary, stuck-inside kind of day, a brother and sister heed their grandmother's advice: "Use those beautiful and brilliant minds of yours. Lift your arms, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and believe in a thing. Somebody somewhere at some point was just as bored you are now." And before they know it, their imaginations lift them up and out of their boredom. Then, on a day full of quarrels, it's time for a trip outside their minds again, and they are able to leave their anger behind. This precious skill, their grandmother tells them, harkens back to the days long before they were born, when their ancestors showed the world the strength and resilience of their beautiful and brilliant minds. Jacqueline Woodson's lyrical text and Rafael Lopez's dazzling art celebrate the extraordinary ability to lift ourselves up and imagine a better world.