Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this reprinted and reillustrated Jack Prelutsky poem has a cute, playful message meant to inspire kids to value their own individuality. Nothing objectionable is presented.
Families can talk about what it means to be an individual. How do the kids in this book show that they are "the only ME I AM who qualifies as me"? Readers might want to look at the kids on each page and point out ways that each is different. Parents might ask their kids to talk about the things that makes each of them unique and special, and everyone might enjoy memorizing Prelutsky's poem and saying it with one another.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Patricia Tauzer
One girl chooses sweats, skates, and pirate hats over the frills of her party dress; she dances in the rain and gives her goldfish a swim in the tub. Another kid, a young boy, sprawls on the floor in his overalls examining snails, ants, and anything else that crawls; he saves a bird that has fallen from a tree and builds a bird hospital that he wheels around in his wagon. A third character dances ballet with her patient puppy for her dolls; she's dressed in a green tutu, head topped with a decorated pink tissue box and neck bedecked with a string of pink paper flowers.
These three are the spotlighted "ME's." But, with a host of other fun-loving individuals, they're all celebrating life in Jack Prelutsky's light-hearted, but self-affirming poem, which illustrator Christine Davenier has stretched into a captivating and expressive picture book that is sure to entertain.
The poem is simple, and clever, as Prelutsky poems tend to be, and kids will love it. However, this book is more about Davenier's interpretation, since her drawings are what builds the story. Her ink-lined water colors are at once sensitive, imaginative, and playful, and are the perfect match for the text.
Jack Prelutsky is the Poetry Foundation's first Children's Poet Laureate.
From The Book
I am the only ME I AM
who qualifies as me;
no ME I AM has been before,
and none will ever be.
Plot Summary:
This picture book is built around the four stanzas of Prelutsky's poem of the same title. Three unique main characters act out one of the first three stanzas, and through the accompanying illustrations, each stretches it into his or her own story. They all come together in the end (with a host of other kids) to finish off the poem and celebrate the "ME I AM" they each express.
Related Books:
Other Books about How It Feels to Be a Kid:
Today I Feel Silly by Jamie Lee Curtis
Queen of the Scene by Queen Latifah
Books of Poetry by Jack Prelutsky
The Beauty of the Beast
Behold the Brave Umbrellaphant and Other Poems
Random House Book of Poetry for Children
Books Illustrated by Christine Davenier
Sally Jean, the Bicycle Queen by Cari Best
The First Thing My Mama Told Me by Susan Marie Swanson
| Content | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CS | adults | kids | ||
Sexual Content |
 |
|
||
Violence |
|
|
||
Language |
|
|
||
Message |
|
|
||
Social BehaviorEncourages kids to feel good about themselves. |
 |
|
||
Commercialism |
 |
|
||
Drug/Alcohol/Tobacco |
|
|
||
