One of my favourite themes in a kid's book is the power of words, so when I am I by Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick came in the other day, I got pretty excited. The story in this book is a pretty loose one. Basically, there are two boys, both of whom proclaim themselves king of everything that surrounds them, while putting down the other. Their words visibly fly out of their mouths, and cause the destruction of everything they love. Eventually, their apologies create life and happiness again.

Hm, I feel like I am not doing a great job of explaining this. Which means you'll have to go look at it yourselves, won't you? I think this book would be great for preschoolers, to learn the power of their words, but that older kids could really get something out of it too. It helps that the illustrations are flat out gorgeous.

There's also a neat little after word, where Fitzpatrick explains that her inspiration for the book comes from a Choctaw symbol, which illustrates their belief that "just as you cannot stand on both sides of a river at once, you cannot belong to two cultures." It's neat that Fitzpatrick was inspired by a Native American idea, but I think we can safely say that the impossibility of belonging to more than one culture is a load of hooey.

I am I by Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick
ISBN 1596430540
32 pages