4 out of 4 stars
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Over my lifetime I've read numerous books about finding peace and heard about all sorts of strategies and tactics for living a peaceful, calm and happy life. It never occurred to me that kids might need peace in their lives too! Many of us look back at our childhoods wishing we were back to such laid back, irresponsible, carefree childhoods, but between homework, learning to socialize with strangers at school and family issues, children need to find peace just like all the rest of us!
I Can See Peace is an illustrated children's book aimed, according to Amazon, at children aged 4-18. It shows various boys and girls finding peace everywhere in life, from playing at the beach to spending time with family or pets. Like in real life, soon the children's peace is interrupted by bullies, nature and even that otherwise-peaceful family when drama happens. But these kids are resilient and determined to find peace, so they once again discover it wherever they can.
When I first saw I Can See Peace by Julie Penshorn I was expecting it to be an ordinary illustrated children's book. I was surprised when I saw the rhymes were so smooth, effortless and sing-songy that I almost didn't even realize lines rhymed! The art was also lovely, and unlike most illustrated books there was a wide range of types of art in the book. The book is also about as multicultural as possible, with boys and girls of various ethnicities. Not only that, there's a girl in a wheelchair and another is bald in a hospital bed. There are images at the farm, at the beach, in the woods and in a city. There's something for pretty much everyone to relate to here, and that's something I greatly appreciate in a book that's focused on not only finding peace for oneself but for using peace to improve the world.
As I said, the art is exceptional in this book. Illustrator Jeanine-Jonee Keith filled the book with full page illustrations of emotional children and all sorts of events. Some seem handmade while others seem to be made with the help of a computer. Nearly all of the pages are spectacular, and many of them are so great I could easily see them as poster prints to go along with the book as reminders all over a child's walls.
After the story there's a section for parents, and while it's only a few pages long it's packed full of content. The first one is the only thing that seemed a little out of place in the book as it basically explains why this book is something kids should read. Although some of this was beneficial, some of it felt a little weird being advertised to after reading the children's book, and it's way too far into the book for any samples to display it. Following this are several fantastic sections for helping kids focus on peace and find it everywhere in life just like the children in the book. For example, one section teaches parents how to play the "I Spy Something Peaceful" game. As you may have guessed, it's a twist on I Spy where someone says they spy something peaceful and everyone tries to guess what it is, and then they explain why it's peaceful to them. The "Peace Journal" is also especially neat; it's a scrapbook that's left somewhere easily accessible for everyone in the family so they can add moments of peace, and then once it's full it's put on a bookshelf and another is started. There are also a bunch of discussion questions at the end of the activities. Discussion questions are usually boring even as an adult, but these really illuminate a lot of details throughout the book, and are far from the standard basic questions. They encourage creativity, learning and reflection, and made me want to read through the book again looking for several of the things I missed.
I Can See Peace was a surprise hit. I loved the writing, I loved the activities at the back and I loved the artwork. I also loved that I was easily able to see and read the book even on my small iPhone 5S, although the text after the story is considerably smaller and required zooming in, so I'd at least recommend a Kindle or tablet for that section. I didn't see any errors, and I can easily see parents wanting to re-read this to their children, or children looking back at it when they're in need of calming down. My rating of I Can See Peace is 4 out of 4 stars
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I Can See Peace
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