The Family Bookshelf
By Bob Walch

"Yoko Writes Her Name"
Hyperion Books - by Rosemary Wells

The Audience: If your child has ever had a bad day at school because of something that happened in the classroom or on the playground, this is a story you'll want to share with him or her. This is especially apropos for a youngster who might be bilingual. (32 pages)

The Issue: A sensitive story dealing with an event at school that makes a child not want to return to the classroom the next day. The author also addresses the importance of accepting cultural diversity in the classroom.

The Content: When Yoko's kindergarten teacher asks the little kitten to show the class how she writes her name, everyone laughs. Olive and Sylvia make fun of Yoko's Japanese writing and say she only scribbled on the paper and she won't "graduate" into the first grade.

Fortunately, Angelo, another student, and Yoko make a deal. He'll show how to her how to write her name in ABC if she'll show him how to write his name in Japanese characters.

Soon all the other students want to do the same thing and suddenly Mrs. Jenkins has a bilingual class!

The Message: Accepting differences is obviously very important and the sooner a child learns this essential lesson the better. Not only will the reader relate to Yoko's hurt feelings but, hopefully, he or she will not make the same mistake some of the little kitten's classmates did in making fun of her.

Before retiring from the classroom, Bob Walch taught English in Santa Barbara and Carmel for 39 years. His reviews of children's literature appear in Central Coast newspapers and online at the Reading Tub, Roundtable Reviews and My Shelf.