Bigger Than Me
By (Author) Erica Simone Turnipseed
Illustrated by Kara Bodegn-Hikino
Simon & Schuster
Atheneum
13th December 2023
United States
Children
Fiction
Childrens / Teenage personal and social topics: Emotions, moods, feelings and be
Childrens / Teenage: Personal and social topics
Early years: letters and words
Picture storybooks
Hardback
40
Width 216mm, Height 279mm, Spine 13mm
460g
Children discover the impact they can have when they band together in this picture book ode to how solidarity lifts everyone up.
Siblings Luna and Zion are feeling a bit overwhelmed. Big words keep rushing at them: Homelessness. Pandemic. Inequality. Recession. Unemployment.
They dont understand the words, but grown-ups do, and the siblings can see how upset the words make them. Wanting to understand the words themselves, Luna and Zion spell them out with building blocks, but the words weight sends the blocks tumbling. So they recruit other kids to help them. Many hands make light work, and as the words are constructed from any materials the children can find, the words themselves grow lighter, and change: Equality. Kindness. Compassion. Liberty. Democracy. Freedom. Hope.
The words are still big, but not as heavyones everyone can carry, if we carry them together.
Erica Simone Turnipseed is a teacher, social justice activist, novelist, and essayist, as well as the author ofBigger Than Me. Originally from Brooklyn, she holds BA and MA degrees in anthropology from Yale and Columbia, respectively, and now lives in Washington, DC.
Kara Bodegn is a cartoonish-illustrator, author, and music journalist who has a thing for sharks. She lives in Manila, Philippines.