Review: Just Ask!: Be Different, Be Brave, Be You

Just Ask!: Be Different, Be Brave, Be You by Sonia Sotomayor
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Years ago, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who has Type 1 Diabetes, was giving herself an injection of insulin in a ladies room. When she was done, another woman there commented to her friend that Sotomayor was a drug addict. Sotomayor politely set her straight and said "if you don't know why someone is doing something, just ask." This event stayed with Sotomayor and became the seed of this children's picture book about differences. Using the analogy of a garden (what if all the plants in our garden were all the same?) Sotomayor points out all the ways in which the differences among people make the garden of our world a richer place. She also encourages children that don't understand why another child or person seems different to (politely, of course) just ask. You could ask the other child, or if they can't explain, ask a teacher or a parent. Understanding differences helps us respect those differences and maybe even make a new friend, or be more helpful to that friend. If you understand about another child's asthma and you've been running around the playground all afternoon and they start wheezing, maybe you can offer to get their inhaler out of their backpack. Or maybe you can learn some ASL to talk with your friend, which is really learning a whole other language! Sotomayor says all of these things are possible once you have just asked.

This is a beautiful picture book.

Este libro también está disponible en una edición en español titulada ¡Solo Pregunta!

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