The Patch

January 30, 2006
Five-year-old Becca is mortified to learn she has amblyopia (her right eye is stronger than her left). "Ballerinas don't wear glasses," she wails. "And they especially do not
wear patches!" But by drawing on her vivid imagination and impressive leadership skills, Becca finds the courage to attend kindergarten the next day, and mesmerizes her peers with three new personas: Becca the Ballerina Pirate, Becca the Private Eye and even Becca the One-Eyed Monster. "By the end of the day," writes Headley (Nothing but the Truth
) "the entire class demanded patches of their own." Unfortunately, the breathless, wordy text leaves little to readers' imaginations, while Vane's (Maddy in the Middle
) cartoon illustrations seem equally frenetic (and her cast looks older than kindergarteners). Even the premise is problematic: given children's love of anything that looks rakish and Becca's own self-possession, readers may find it hard to believe that she had to invest so much energy to persuade her classmates that her patch is cool. Ages 5-8.