The Day You Begin

A #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

Featured in its own episode in the Netflix original show Bookmarks: Celebrating Black Voices!

National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson and two-time Pura Belpré Illustrator Award winner Rafael López have teamed up to create a poignant, yet heartening book about finding courage to connect, even when you feel scared and alone.

There will be times when you walk into a room
and no one there is quite like you.

There are many reasons to feel different. Maybe it's how you look or talk, or where you're from; maybe it's what you eat, or something just as random. It's not easy to take those first steps into a place where nobody really knows you yet, but somehow you do it.

Jacqueline Woodson's lyrical text and Rafael López's dazzling art reminds us that we all feel like outsiders sometimes-and how brave it is that we go forth anyway. And that sometimes, when we reach out and begin to share our stories, others will be happy to meet us halfway.

(This book is also available in Spanish, as El Día En Que Descubres Quién Eres!)

The Day You Begin

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399246531
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	08/28/2018
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	6,952
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 10.30(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Jacqueline Woodson (www.jacquelinewoodson.com) is the recipient of a 2023 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a 2020 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award, the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the 2018 Children’s Literature Legacy Award. She was the 2018–2019 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, and in 2015, she was named the Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. She received the 2014 National Book Award for her New York Times bestselling memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, which was also a recipient of the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor, the NAACP Image Award, and a Sibert Honor. She wrote the adult books Red at the Bone, a New York Times bestseller, and Another Brooklyn, a 2016 National Book Award finalist. Born in Columbus, Ohio, Jacqueline grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, and Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from college with a B.A. in English. She is the author of dozens of award-winning books for young adults, middle graders, and children; among her many accolades, she is a four-time Newbery Honor winner, a four-time National Book Award finalist, and a three-time Coretta Scott King Award winner. Her books include Coretta Scott King Award winner Before the Ever After; New York Times bestsellers The Day You Begin and Harbor Me; The Other Side, Each Kindness, Caldecott Honor book Coming On Home Soon; Newbery Honor winners Feathers, Show Way, and After Tupac and D Foster; and Miracle's Boys, which received the LA Times Book Prize and the Coretta Scott King Award. Jacqueline is also a recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement for her contributions to young adult literature and a two-time winner of the Jane Addams Children's Book Award. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.

Rafael López won Pura Belpré medals for Drum Dream Girl and Book Fiesta, and has also received three Pura Belpré honors, two Américas Book Awards, and the 2017 Tom's Rivera Children's Book Award and Society of Illustrators Original Art Silver Medal. His work has been featured in Communication Arts, American Illustration Annual, Graphic Design USA and Huffington Post. He's a founder of San Diego's Urban Art Trail movement, created seven US Postal Stamps, and created official posters for the '08 and '12 Obama-Biden campaigns.

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The Day You Begin - Book Trailer

Editorial Reviews

Starting a new school year is hard enough. Add in feeling different from your classmates, and it can shake a kid to the core. The incomparable Woodson…and López…extend a reassuring hand in this verbally and visually poetic book…

The New York Times Book Review - Maria Russo

★ 06/11/2018
Woodson (Brown Girl Dreaming) imagines being “an only” in the classroom—what it’s like to be the only one with an accent (“No one understands the way words curl from your mouth”), the only one who stayed home during summer vacation (“What good is this/ when other students were flying/ and sailing”), the only one whose lunch box is filled with food “too strange or too unfamiliar for others to love as you do.” Without prescribing sympathy, Woodson’s poetic lines give power to each child’s experience. She describes the moment when the girl who didn’t go on vacation speaks her truth, her “voice stronger than it was a minute ago.” She has cared for her sister all summer, she tells her classmates, reading and telling stories: “Even though we were right on our block it was like/ we got to go EVERYWHERE.” And “all at once” in the seconds after sharing one’s story, something shifts, common ground is revealed, and “the world opens itself up a little wider/ to make some space for you.” López (Drum Dream Girl) paints the book’s array of children as students in the same classroom; patterns and colors on the children’s clothing and the growing things around them fill the spreads with life. Woodson’s gentle, lilting story and López’s artistry create a stirring portrait of the courage it takes to be oneself: “There will be times when you walk into a room and no one there is quite like you until the day you begin/ to share your stories.” Ages 5–8. Author’s agent: Kathleen Nishimoto, William Morris Endeavor. Illustrator’s agent: Stefanie Von Borstel, Full Circle. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

* “National Book Award winner and national treasure Jacqueline Woodson teams up with two-time Pura Belpré Award recipient Rafael López to deliver an empowering message to any child who has ever felt too different. . . . Woodson and López offer a needed message of comfort to preschool and early elementary students. Woodson's lulling free verse reassures the reader that the world will ‘make some space,’ while López's dreamy, near-translucent mixed-media illustrations thrum with playful joy. This gentle, powerful ode to diversity and acceptance belongs with all children.”—Shelf Awareness, starred review

* “A beautiful and inclusive story that encourages children to find the beauty in their own lives and share it with the world. . . . Each child feels very alone until they begin to share their stories and discover that it is nearly always possible to find someone a little like you. López’s vibrant illustrations bring the characters’ hidden and unspoken thoughts to light with fantastic, swirling color. Shifting hues and textures across the page convey their deep loneliness and then slowly transition into bright hopeful possibilities. Full-bleed illustrations on every page are thick with collaged patterns and textures that pair perfectly with melodic prose that begs to be read aloud. . . . There’s an essential acknowledgment that everyone will experience a time when no one is quite like them, when they can’t find their voice, or when they feel very alone. Woodson’s superlative text sees each character turn that moment of desolation into an opportunity to be brave and find hope in what they have in common. This masterful story deserves a place in every library.”—School Library Journal, starred review

* “A bright jewel-toned palette and clever details, including a literal reflection of a better future, reveal hope and pride. . . . This reassuring, lyrical book feels like a big hug from a wise aunt as she imparts the wisdom of the world in order to calm trepidatious young children: One of these things is not like the other, and that is actually what makes all the difference. A must-have book about the power of one’s voice and the friendships that emerge when you are yourself.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

* “Woodson’s poetic lines give power to each child’s experience. . . . López paints the book’s array of children as students in the same classroom; patterns and colors on the children’s clothing and the growing things around them fill the spreads with life. Woodson’s gentle, lilting story and López’s artistry create a stirring portrait of the courage it takes to be oneself.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

* “Woodson’s lyrical text is gently reassuring as it moves between broad discussion and specific examples of difference and discomfort, which emphasize children moving across cultures but will speak to children from all backgrounds and experiences. Mixed-media illustrations . . . combine bold with soft colors and textures in a slightly shaded tropical palette; compositions employ creative and insightful perspectives to suit the characters’ feelings. . . . The artist frequently incorporates a ruler into the illustrations, which perhaps speaks to the children’s perceptions of how they measure up to others. This lovely and sensitive treatment of adjustment deserves a spot in any collection for youngsters.”—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, starred review

“Woodson catches the uncertainty, even fear, that comes with new situations. But her lyrical language also captures the moment when confidence sparks and friendships are born. . . . The bold, bright artwork features a diverse cast of kids. . . . The important message plays out in a striking design that mixes the everyday with flights of fancy. Woodson, a recent National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, is one of kidlit's brightest stars, and this should find lots of eager hands.”—Booklist

“What will it take for a child who feels different to share her stories? . . . Like Woodson’s memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, this story places great value on literacy, reading, and imagination. The matte-finished pages feature illustrations in vivid, brilliant colors, with repeated appearances of flying birds and lush, twining vines and flowers.”—Horn Book

From the Publisher

★ 08/01/2018
K-Gr 2-A beautiful and inclusive story that encourages children to find the beauty in their own lives and share it with the world. A young girl with brown skin and curly black hair stays home through the summer to watch over her younger sister while her classmates travel to distant lands. A young boy from Venezuela arrives in his new school and finds the children in his class do not speak his language. Another child brings a lunch that her classmates find too strange while another isn't physically able to keep up with the play of other children. Each child feels very alone until they begin to share their stories and discover that it is nearly always possible to find someone a little like you. López's vibrant illustrations bring the characters' hidden and unspoken thoughts to light with fantastic, swirling color. Shifting hues and textures across the page convey their deep loneliness and then slowly transition into bright hopeful possibilities. Full-bleed illustrations on every page are thick with collaged patterns and textures that pair perfectly with melodic prose that begs to be read aloud. Though the story focuses on four singular experiences, there's an essential acknowledgment that everyone will experience a time when no one is quite like them, when they can't find their voice, or when they feel very alone. Woodson's superlative text sees each character turns that moment of desolation into an opportunity to be brave and find hope in what they have in common. VERDICT This masterful story deserves a place in every library.—Laken Hottle, Providence Community Library

School Library Journal

★ 2018-06-11
School-age children encounter and overcome feelings of difference from their peers in the latest picture book from Woodson.This nonlinear story centers on Angelina, with big curly hair and brown skin, as she begins the school year with a class share-out of summer travels. Text and illustrations effectively work together to convey her feelings of otherness as she reflects on her own summer spent at home: "What good is this / when others were flying," she ponders while leaning out her city window forlornly watching birds fly past to seemingly faraway places. López's incorporation of a ruler for a door, table, and tree into the illustrations creatively extends the metaphor of measuring up to others. Three other children—Rigoberto, a recent immigrant from Venezuela; a presumably Korean girl with her "too strange" lunch of kimchi, meat, and rice; and a lonely white boy in what seems to be a suburb—experience more-direct teasing for their outsider status. A bright jewel-toned palette and clever details, including a literal reflection of a better future, reveal hope and pride in spite of the taunting. This reassuring, lyrical book feels like a big hug from a wise aunt as she imparts the wisdom of the world in order to calm trepidatious young children: One of these things is not like the other, and that is actually what makes all the difference.A must-have book about the power of one's voice and the friendships that emerge when you are yourself. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews

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