By Vashti Harrison
A tender picture book about a Black girl praised for being a 'big girl' until the very same word is turned against her.
A little girl grows up hearing 'what a big girl!' as the highest praise, until one day the word turns on her. The same grown-ups and classmates who cheered start using 'big' to mean too much, too tall, too round. The ballet leotard doesn't fit, the playground swing pinches, and hurtful words pile up on the page around her. It's the story of a child learning she's been made to carry other people's discomfort, and, slowly and tenderly, learning to hand it back and take up her space again. Vashti Harrison tells it in spare words and huge, gorgeous, feeling-soaked pictures.
Your child has been called 'big,' or 'too much,' and felt something close in their chest, and this is their book. Harrison doesn't lecture; she shows exactly how a kind-sounding word becomes a weapon, and how a child can be made to apologize for a body that did nothing wrong. Because it's a picture book, a younger or reluctant reader can hold the whole story in twenty minutes, but the feeling runs deep enough to matter to a ten-year-old. The ending gives back what the middle takes away: the girl reclaims her space, and your child gets to watch her do it.