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mat_tobin's review against another edition
5.0
A boy. A river. A stutter. A bubbling, whirling, churning and crashing cacophony. I Talk Like A River is yet another masterpiece from illustrator Sydney Smith whose deeply resonating illustrations orchestrate wholly within and around Jordan Scott's deeply personal, powerful poem.
With words and lines interspersed between close-up frames and double-page spreads, we follow one boy on his journey to try and overcome or at least, be at one with, his stutter. Scott's poem, much like Smith's paintings, are of two halves. In one half, the day seems calm and collected and yet as the realisation of school dawns, so the stress and the meter of poem begins to build and stutter: mirrored by Smith's blurred, tense illustrations and stark use of frames within frames. Freedom and imprisonment through words then is the theme of the first half of the story here.
Asked to speak in front of the whole class, the boys closes in and his world loses focus from the pressure and humiliation. It is only later, when his father takes him for a drive to the forest, that he finds time to be calm. On the water's edge, his father points out that his son's stutter and the river share much in common. The words in his head might be hard to say because they also, at times, 'bubble and 'churn' and 'whirl' and 'crash'. Rather than let the fear of his stutter drown him, the boy begins to realise that he must be at one with it because just as the river can move rapidly, so it can also be calm and smooth.
Descending into the river, the boy has an epiphany; a spiritual awakening of sorts where he realises that he is not alone and that he need only close his eyes and 'see' the river to find that inner peace and acceptance. In doing so, the world becomes less threatening and scary.
It goes without saying that the book is a work of art in and of itself. Smith has clearly worked so tirelessly on not just giving space to Scott's words but thinking carefully about how his visual and spiritual world can work alongside them: the central gatefold is a masterstroke.
Finally, it is worth noting that Scott, who is a performing poet, has a stutter and went through much of what our protagonist did. Yet he sees the 'terrifying beauty' in his stutter now and embraces it when he recites his poems. Do seek his work out on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwoNtePaNcc
With words and lines interspersed between close-up frames and double-page spreads, we follow one boy on his journey to try and overcome or at least, be at one with, his stutter. Scott's poem, much like Smith's paintings, are of two halves. In one half, the day seems calm and collected and yet as the realisation of school dawns, so the stress and the meter of poem begins to build and stutter: mirrored by Smith's blurred, tense illustrations and stark use of frames within frames. Freedom and imprisonment through words then is the theme of the first half of the story here.
Asked to speak in front of the whole class, the boys closes in and his world loses focus from the pressure and humiliation. It is only later, when his father takes him for a drive to the forest, that he finds time to be calm. On the water's edge, his father points out that his son's stutter and the river share much in common. The words in his head might be hard to say because they also, at times, 'bubble and 'churn' and 'whirl' and 'crash'. Rather than let the fear of his stutter drown him, the boy begins to realise that he must be at one with it because just as the river can move rapidly, so it can also be calm and smooth.
Descending into the river, the boy has an epiphany; a spiritual awakening of sorts where he realises that he is not alone and that he need only close his eyes and 'see' the river to find that inner peace and acceptance. In doing so, the world becomes less threatening and scary.
It goes without saying that the book is a work of art in and of itself. Smith has clearly worked so tirelessly on not just giving space to Scott's words but thinking carefully about how his visual and spiritual world can work alongside them: the central gatefold is a masterstroke.
Finally, it is worth noting that Scott, who is a performing poet, has a stutter and went through much of what our protagonist did. Yet he sees the 'terrifying beauty' in his stutter now and embraces it when he recites his poems. Do seek his work out on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwoNtePaNcc
bookdevour_bettie's review against another edition
5.0
Konsten, orden, ALLT!
Helt underbar bok som porträtterar stamning på ett fint vis.
Helt underbar bok som porträtterar stamning på ett fint vis.
encounterswiththemoon's review against another edition
5.0
An audiobook so bewilderingly beautiful; enthrallingly touching & tender, I am humbled, appreciative & mesmerized by Scott's writing, the metaphors & the reality which is explored in this story.
zoes_human's review against another edition
emotional
3.0
An autobiographical portrait of a day of a boy struggling with a world that that laughs at his stutter and his connection to his father and nature which heals him. Accompanied by lovely impressionistic art.
Suitable for ages 4 to 8.
Suitable for ages 4 to 8.
jecoats's review against another edition
5.0
I stumbled across I Talk Like a River while searching for inclusion books written in the last 5 years on Google, and I watched a reading of it on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6AvVSy_ing). I Talk Like a River has been nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal (2022), the Odyssey Award (2022), the Governor General's Literary Awards / Prix littéraires du Gouverneur général Nominee for Young People's Literature- Illustrated Books (English-language) (2020), and has won the Schneider Family Book Award for Young Children (2021).
I Talk Like a River details two days in the life of a young, unnamed protagonist who struggles with stuttering. He begins his story by vividly describing what it’s like for him to speak the consonantal sounds ‘P,’ ‘C,’ and ‘M.’ He also details what it’s like to be called on in class, expressing the fear he experiences at having to form words in front of his peers, and how isolated he feels in class. After school, his father picks him up and the two go to the river together. There, his father tells him that he speaks like the river - his words crash and churn and break just like the rushing rapids. The boy then realizes that the river eventually becomes a pool of smooth, clear waters - just as his own stutter eventually becomes smooth, clear speech. The book ends the next day as our protagonist finds his voice, and is able to tell the class about his favorite place in the world - the river.
I decided to review this book for my inclusion title because I am torn about how I feel about the story. On the one hand, this is a beautifully written and illustrated book. I love how writer Jordan Scott (who himself struggled with a stutter) places the protagonist's disability at the center of the story. There is no narrative erasure of the boy's disability in this book - from the beginning of the story we know that he has difficulty forming spoken words. Instead, using vivid and, quite frankly, beautiful language, Scott gives us an authentic account of the boy’s lived experience with his stutter. This does lead to a book that has an overall more melancholic tone than the other picturebooks I have read - but I think this tone helps to underscore the protagonist’s experience and feelings living with a speech impediment. The book does end on a more positive note, but even this brief reprieve still carries an emotional weight consistent with the overall narrative.
The artwork in the picturebook is gorgeous, and I think it only adds to the emotional weight and insight of the narrative. There are many two page spreads throughout the book, some of which make use of negative space in a way that speak to the isolation and loneliness the boy experiences. There is even a striking image early in the book that depicts the boy, but with crows and roots superimposed over his face. Somehow, artist Sydney Smith uses this image to visually convey how the boy feels as words are trapped in his mouth.
Full disclosure - I had an entire “on the other hand” argument ready to go, but as I wrote about the various things I loved about the book, I found my own “on the other hand” arguments resolving themselves. I considered changing my review to omit the setup for a critique, but I decided to keep it intact as I think it demonstrates the transformative nature of writing about a text. In exploring a book on the discussion boards or on Goodreads, I think we discover new aspects of the narrative we may never have considered. I was going to discuss how I found a nameless protagonist to be a kind of narrative erasure. However, as I wrote the review, I began to realize that this might have been done so any child reading the story could imagine themselves as the protagonist. By not giving him a name, readers are free to almost become the protagonist, and to make the same realizations that their speech might also be like a river - churning along until it finally becomes “smooth and glistening.” I also realized that despite not having a name, the protagonist is the narrator, and is given full autonomy to tell his own story. This is very much the opposite of the picturebooks (My Pal, Victor and Susan Laughs) described in “Just Like Me, Just Like You: Narrative Erasure as Disability Normalization in Children’s Picture Books.” As Tanja Aho and Grit Alter state, the characters depicted in those books are “discursively located in inferior positions as both do not speak themselves, but are spoken for and about” (p. 7). In other words, the characters’ autonomy is stolen, essentially converting them into objects for the (presumably) able bodied narrator to discuss. This, in my opinion, completely strips the narrative of any sense of an authentic lived experience, and instead places the depiction of disability under an ableist lens.
So - in short - I rescind my “on the other hand” comments (I also changed my initial 4-star rating to a 5 star rating). While I wouldn’t suggest that this is the greatest depiction of the struggle of stuttering there is, it is a powerful, authentic reading experience. I also appreciate that it doesn’t handle the character or the subject matter with “kiddie gloves.” The book instead allows the protagonist/narrator to explain in vivid detail exactly what having a stutter feels like and how it impacts him socially and emotionally. This alone makes the book a wonderful sliding glass door. The way Scott explains how it feels to stutter left me with some understanding of what having a stutter might physically feel like - almost as if I was experiencing it myself. As I suggested above, this book does a great job of inviting the reader in and allowing them to experience the protagonist’s struggle in an authentic manner. I also think this book makes a great mirror as it is a genuine and authentic experience. The fact that it is written by an ‘insider’ heightens the overall emotional impact of the story, but it also gives our students not just a character that is like them, but a poet and author that also reflects their lived experiences.
I Talk Like a River details two days in the life of a young, unnamed protagonist who struggles with stuttering. He begins his story by vividly describing what it’s like for him to speak the consonantal sounds ‘P,’ ‘C,’ and ‘M.’ He also details what it’s like to be called on in class, expressing the fear he experiences at having to form words in front of his peers, and how isolated he feels in class. After school, his father picks him up and the two go to the river together. There, his father tells him that he speaks like the river - his words crash and churn and break just like the rushing rapids. The boy then realizes that the river eventually becomes a pool of smooth, clear waters - just as his own stutter eventually becomes smooth, clear speech. The book ends the next day as our protagonist finds his voice, and is able to tell the class about his favorite place in the world - the river.
I decided to review this book for my inclusion title because I am torn about how I feel about the story. On the one hand, this is a beautifully written and illustrated book. I love how writer Jordan Scott (who himself struggled with a stutter) places the protagonist's disability at the center of the story. There is no narrative erasure of the boy's disability in this book - from the beginning of the story we know that he has difficulty forming spoken words. Instead, using vivid and, quite frankly, beautiful language, Scott gives us an authentic account of the boy’s lived experience with his stutter. This does lead to a book that has an overall more melancholic tone than the other picturebooks I have read - but I think this tone helps to underscore the protagonist’s experience and feelings living with a speech impediment. The book does end on a more positive note, but even this brief reprieve still carries an emotional weight consistent with the overall narrative.
The artwork in the picturebook is gorgeous, and I think it only adds to the emotional weight and insight of the narrative. There are many two page spreads throughout the book, some of which make use of negative space in a way that speak to the isolation and loneliness the boy experiences. There is even a striking image early in the book that depicts the boy, but with crows and roots superimposed over his face. Somehow, artist Sydney Smith uses this image to visually convey how the boy feels as words are trapped in his mouth.
Full disclosure - I had an entire “on the other hand” argument ready to go, but as I wrote about the various things I loved about the book, I found my own “on the other hand” arguments resolving themselves. I considered changing my review to omit the setup for a critique, but I decided to keep it intact as I think it demonstrates the transformative nature of writing about a text. In exploring a book on the discussion boards or on Goodreads, I think we discover new aspects of the narrative we may never have considered. I was going to discuss how I found a nameless protagonist to be a kind of narrative erasure. However, as I wrote the review, I began to realize that this might have been done so any child reading the story could imagine themselves as the protagonist. By not giving him a name, readers are free to almost become the protagonist, and to make the same realizations that their speech might also be like a river - churning along until it finally becomes “smooth and glistening.” I also realized that despite not having a name, the protagonist is the narrator, and is given full autonomy to tell his own story. This is very much the opposite of the picturebooks (My Pal, Victor and Susan Laughs) described in “Just Like Me, Just Like You: Narrative Erasure as Disability Normalization in Children’s Picture Books.” As Tanja Aho and Grit Alter state, the characters depicted in those books are “discursively located in inferior positions as both do not speak themselves, but are spoken for and about” (p. 7). In other words, the characters’ autonomy is stolen, essentially converting them into objects for the (presumably) able bodied narrator to discuss. This, in my opinion, completely strips the narrative of any sense of an authentic lived experience, and instead places the depiction of disability under an ableist lens.
So - in short - I rescind my “on the other hand” comments (I also changed my initial 4-star rating to a 5 star rating). While I wouldn’t suggest that this is the greatest depiction of the struggle of stuttering there is, it is a powerful, authentic reading experience. I also appreciate that it doesn’t handle the character or the subject matter with “kiddie gloves.” The book instead allows the protagonist/narrator to explain in vivid detail exactly what having a stutter feels like and how it impacts him socially and emotionally. This alone makes the book a wonderful sliding glass door. The way Scott explains how it feels to stutter left me with some understanding of what having a stutter might physically feel like - almost as if I was experiencing it myself. As I suggested above, this book does a great job of inviting the reader in and allowing them to experience the protagonist’s struggle in an authentic manner. I also think this book makes a great mirror as it is a genuine and authentic experience. The fact that it is written by an ‘insider’ heightens the overall emotional impact of the story, but it also gives our students not just a character that is like them, but a poet and author that also reflects their lived experiences.
petitpoisauwasabi's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
shighley's review against another edition
4.0
While I am so disappointed that Scott's teacher did not seem to understand his difficulty, this is a wonderful book. The illustrations are glorious, and I thought his explanation was very interesting; I had not really thought about different types of stuttering.
Added January, 2022
Revisited this via the audio after it won an Odyssey Award. At times I felt the music accompaniment was a bit overwhelming. I would pair the audio with the book or eBook itself to give students the full experience.
Added January, 2022
Revisited this via the audio after it won an Odyssey Award. At times I felt the music accompaniment was a bit overwhelming. I would pair the audio with the book or eBook itself to give students the full experience.
drcbooks's review against another edition
4.0
Beautiful illustrations full of motion and dreams. This book can be a powerful read for children with speech disorders.
mjfmjfmjf's review against another edition
4.0
A personal story basically about stuttering. But comes across also as a book of figuring out who you are. And being different. And having someone help you through. With beautiful art. A bit simple for me and maybe not the best text. But still good.
degroot_maartje's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75