“After a class of diverse students selects books at the library, peppy rhyming verse by Degman (Norbert’s Big Dream) and whimsical digital-and-watercolor illustrations by Tentler-Krylov (Read-Aloud Classics: Peter Pan) integrate the chosen titles’ settings and subjects into the children’s lives, underscoring the ease and joy with which readers are transported by books (‘Hooray! I know how to read on my own!’). A girl reading My Big Book of Animals affectionately pets a moose sticking its head into her subway car while a dazzling menagerie looks on; a reader floating in a swimming pool filled with sea creatures pores over Shark Facts. Also spotlighted are more realistic scenarios: a boy grocery shopping with an adult peruses The Kid Chef, and a guitar-toting kid flips through a songbook at a music store. Welcome inclusions are a girl reading a book in Braille as she flies on a magic carpet over an exotic city (‘I read with my fingers across bumpy lines’), pictured alongside a child communicating with a sibling in sign language (‘I read with my voice or my hands, using signs’). A chipper, colorful celebration of the limitless possibilities for what, where, and when one can read.” — Publishers Weekly
“Just read! It could be a command, a suggestion, or a declaration of accomplishment. Either way, this lively book is a delightful tribute to reading anything and everything all the time. The solitary act of reading is recast as a venture into worlds of people and lives far different from our own: ‘I read with an astronaut, pirate or farmer / I read with a clown or a knight wearing armor.’ Jaunty rhyming couplets bounce around the pages as the children in the illustrations read books, magazines, hand signs, road signs, maps, sheet music, and Braille. Vibrant watercolor illustrations are used to full effect, so that washes of blue transport a girl reading about sharks into a tropical seascape, and a boy reading about tigers sees the big cat’s fiery coat leaping from a pile of fall leaves. The diversity of reading material is matched by the diversity of readers, contexts, and interests. There’s something for everyone; there’s no holding back—just read!” — Booklist
