*This book was given as a complimentary copy to Mama Buzz and reviewers, for blog tour purposes.*
Max Lucado with illustrator Maria Monescillo brings us "The Tallest of Smalls", a book written for young children about self worth, "a parable from Max Lucado's "Fearless" (according to the book jacket).
The story took me back in time to games in PE that had two team captains choosing, one at a time, team members from the students in the class. I was much older than the 4-7 year old crowd that this book is written for. "Pick me!" runs though the mind of every child in the class, who is hoping NOT to be the very last person chosen. Loyalties of friendships are often set aside during these team picks as the captains try to stack their team with the better athletes. It's a set up for a lot of hurt feelings.
"The Tallest of Smalls" is about a boy named Otis who is the smallest of Smalls, and he's waiting, begging, to be chosen to receive a pair of stilts so that he can parade around among the folks in town who were not chosen. When he gets his stilts, he is a mess. He stumbles and loses his stilts. He soon learns that doesn't matter, because with Jesus, we all already matter.
The story is written in rhyme, with short sections of a Du Seuss-like poem on each illustrated page. Some of the illustrations are what I'd call cute, and some are notsocute. (I think some the faces of the people in the story are a bit scary looking -- some of them have no noses and some have no mouths.)
For a child with language delays, I think this poems that make up this story may be a challenge to grasp, although the ending is clear as Jesus tells little Ollie, "You're precious, my Ollie, not too short of too small; I made you, remember, you're mine after all."
The story took me back in time to games in PE that had two team captains choosing, one at a time, team members from the students in the class. I was much older than the 4-7 year old crowd that this book is written for. "Pick me!" runs though the mind of every child in the class, who is hoping NOT to be the very last person chosen. Loyalties of friendships are often set aside during these team picks as the captains try to stack their team with the better athletes. It's a set up for a lot of hurt feelings.
"The Tallest of Smalls" is about a boy named Otis who is the smallest of Smalls, and he's waiting, begging, to be chosen to receive a pair of stilts so that he can parade around among the folks in town who were not chosen. When he gets his stilts, he is a mess. He stumbles and loses his stilts. He soon learns that doesn't matter, because with Jesus, we all already matter.
The story is written in rhyme, with short sections of a Du Seuss-like poem on each illustrated page. Some of the illustrations are what I'd call cute, and some are notsocute. (I think some the faces of the people in the story are a bit scary looking -- some of them have no noses and some have no mouths.)
For a child with language delays, I think this poems that make up this story may be a challenge to grasp, although the ending is clear as Jesus tells little Ollie, "You're precious, my Ollie, not too short of too small; I made you, remember, you're mine after all."
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