Be a Maker, a 2019 picture book written by Katey Howes and illustrated by Elizabeth Vukovic, is another I’ve picked up for the thinnest of reasons: I’m working on a book told in the second person, and an article mentioned this book was too. So this is the least prejudiced of reviews one could want: I hadn’t heard of the writer or artist, but I like their grammar choices!
Just kidding, of course, but in this case, addressing the kids reading the book directly really works with its purpose. The first page starts the book–and the day–but asking the kid “today, what will you make?”
The rest of the book sketches out possibilities for making things in natural feeling rhyming couplets. Images fill pages and spill over onto the next, communicating without words the idea that creation is a messy explosion…and that’s okay.
Kids from different ethnic backgrounds, and with different physical abilities (one recurring figure is in a wheelchair) make blueprints, toys, dreams, noise, and, eventually, community.
I don’t think anyone will fall completely in love here–this isn’t Sendak or Seuss–but many will like it, feel welcomed, and feel encouraged in their creation and exploration.
