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My Miss 5 started kindergarten this year and, if you haven’t yet reached this milestone, my goodness is school hard work these days! They ask a lot of these little people. It’s been amazing to see my kid turn into a reader and a adding-subtracting whiz. All this learning hasn’t always been easy. She’s hit bumps and frustrations along the way, and there have been moments where her confidence has wavered. Going into her classroom as a parent volunteer, I see firsthand all the different personality types, learning challenges, fears, and strengths of Miss 5 and her peers. With that in mind, All the Ways to Be Smart (published by Scribble) by Davina Bell (author) and Allison Colpoys (illustrator) seemed like the perfect picture book to add to our collection.
Bell and Colpoys are something of a kid-lit dreaming team, creating emotionally sensitive and visually lush picture books. This one follows their beauties The Underwater Fancy Dress Parade and Under the Love Umbrella. All the Ways to Be Smart is another big-hearted book. It speaks directly to children, telling the reader, “I can’t wait to share with you how smart you are the whole day through.”
Each page then lists ways in which kids can be smart – smart at arts and craft, smart at kindness, smart at math and science, smart at playing, smart at daydreaming, smart at noticing things, and many more ways to be smart.
All of the “ways to be be smart” are illustrated with children in an imaginative world, full of dinosaurs, and clowns, and witches, and critters, and happy monsters. Each page is so full of sweet details that I’ve kept leafing through to spend a little more time with the darling faces and little touches that pull this childhood imagination world together. The children are marvelously diverse, spanning a range of ethnicities, features, and physical abilities. Most children will be able to spot at least one character that looks like them and, moreover, kids may internalize (without having it hammered into their heads) how all these children play together in the same place of joyful cleverness.
I have our copy of All the Ways to Be Smart tucked away as a Christmas present for Miss 5, as she wraps up a year of learning, being challenged, and defining her sense of self more than she ever has before. This book would be a wonderful gift for a child starting school, pre-school, moving to a new home, or for any reason feeling a little bit like they don’t fit in. And, as a parent, it’s a touching reminder of how special the passions of childhood are, and how lucky we are to be able to watch our children show us each day all the ways that they are smart.
Use these links to buy All the Ways to Be Smart via Booktopia in Australia or via Amazon Global for U.S. and U.K.
This review is self-funded.