Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
You're different and that's super
Illustrator: Lee Jared
Picture Book
For ages 4 and up
Simon and Schuster, 2005 ISBN: 1416900705
Trumpet the colt seems to arrive out the blue. No one knows who his mother is, and he looks a little different from the other colts because he is a snow white color and has a golden mane. Still, the other colts and their mothers, the mares, accept him. Trumpet plays with the colts, sleeps in the barn with them, and shares his days with them all. Indeed Trumpet is “easily the most popular colt around.”
And then everything changes. It all begins on Trumpet’s first birthday. He starts to get a bump on his forehead that just grows and grows and grows until Trumpet has an honest to goodness horn growing out of his head. The other horses, whom Trumpet has known all his life, are very suspicious of this new development. It is different and different; to them, is a bad thing. Poor Trumpet finds himself spending more and more time alone, for none of the others wanted to play with him or share a stall with him at night.
Then something dreadful happens, and once again Trumpet’s life is changed for ever. Thankfully this time it is for the better, and Trumpet discovers that it can be very “super” to be different.
This book is perfect for anyone who has despaired because they are different in some way. Through Trumpet’s experiences readers will see that there is nothing wrong with being different and that, indeed, there are benefits if you know where to find them. Not everyone who is different will get to become a celebrity the way Trumpet does of course, but there are other things to look forward to and to enjoy. Most important of all, no matter how different you are, you can find your place in the world – all you have to do is look for it.
Simple black and white drawings perfectly suit the spare and meaningful text in this special little picture book.
