You Be You

October 10, 2011
The follow-up to Kranz’s Only One You features dozens of small, smooth stones painted to look like rainbow-colored fish; each one bears a slightly different pattern of design and color, reinforcing the story’s theme of difference. It has the same hero, too—Adri, who spends his day noticing the many kinds of fish in the ocean: “Some fish are colorful,/ Some fish are plain./ Some fish look different./ Some fish look the same.” Photo images of waves and sky serve as a backdrop: the “plain” fish are inked in black but left uncolored, while the colorful ones are festooned with Peter Max–style dots, stripes, and rainbows. “We can learn so much from each other,” says Adri’s Papa, when Adri returns home to share his discovery with his parents. “Life is a grand journey,” adds Adri’s mother. “You be you.” The combination of the colorful, jewellike objects and affirmative messages is likely to make this book as popular as Kranz’s first, which has a loyal following. An added bonus: readers can hunt for Adri, who’s hidden among the other fish on every page. Ages 4–8.

October 15, 2011
There are many fish in the sea--and they are all different. Adri, a winsome fish, spends the day exploring, and as he heads home, he can't help but notice variety in the assortment of finned creatures that surround him. In this companion to the earlier Only One You (2006), which presented Chicken Soup–type advice to the same young fish, Kranz escapes didacticism and provides young readers with an appealing look at diversity. Primarily focused on opposites such as right and left, up and down, big and tiny, smooth and spiny, the bouncy, rhymed text points out differences, while colorful fish swim through the pages illustrating the aforementioned variations. If there is a flaw in Kranz's stylistic rockfish, it is that the differences are not always obvious, as all of the fish have a similar look, but this will serve to make children examine the pictures more closely. Presented with clarity, the distinctions are nicely summarized by Adri himself when he returns to his parents: "There are so many of us…We all have something special that only we can share." Youngsters will enjoy the catchiness of the text and the lively nature of the illustrations, while appreciating the concepts found within, and parallels can easily be drawn to differences of all sorts. A good choice to help children consider similarities and differences. (Picture book. 3-6)

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