Welcome to Litsy!

An excellent book for adolescents, young adults, and parents who want to shield their children from the effects of diet culture and the body-image obsessions perpetuated by Hollywood and advertising.

Vashti Harrison‘s self-illustrated picture book is a beautifully executed look at fat bias and its impact on young children. The text is sparse with the focus on the images of the nameless little girl as she endures the taunts and well-meaning but still hurtful comments from adults. It‘s wonderfully done and very moving such that I am still thinking about it. I‘d definitely read more of Harrison‘s work on the strength of this.

I‘m so glad this picture book won some ALA Youth Media Awards today! It‘s a fantastic and beautifully illustrated story of how words can hurt, but how we can also work to control our self-image. Many of my students picked this as the Caldecott winner! *Graphic via Little, Brown Books for Young Readers‘ instagram

I‘m doing a “Mock Caldecott” unit with my students in the library, and these are the books we are reading. They are so beautiful! We‘ll find out the real winner next week! #schoollibrarian

I love Harrison‘s other books and this did not disappoint. I adored this book‘s illustrations and message. Everyone should read it. 💕💕💕

The book is an assortment of poems, Main character's name is Ellie. The main character is a larger girl and people often make comments about her size. The book is great for learning to love herself. Ellie overcomes her feelings of not belonging and realizes she does not need others opinions to love herself.

About a girl named Ellie who is self conscious of her body image and her mom talks bad about her to her face which brings her down. Ellie struggled as being the “bigger girl“ but over time she learns to love herself and her body. The book is in more of a poetry format so there are a bunch of mini stories instead of chapters. It is set up differently than other books but that is what makes it interesting and easy to read.

It is all set up in poems and not chapters. A girl named Ellie is writing the poems and she uses these poems to help get through what she deals with. She is constantly bullied and her mom says things about her weight. She talks with her therapist about all of her issues and she learns that she doesn't need other peoples validation. The only thing that matters is what she likes and how she feels about herself.

Written in an unusual free verse poem format, this book follows main character Ellie who grapples with self love and criticism from peers and her mother. Ellie learns to validate her own feelings and look past what others say.