shari cassutt

This is could have been lovely little book but instead it grated on me time after time. I doubt the author has much experience with children. It is highly unlikely that three year old Maya would think to or be capable of measuring the space of the store in “Maya’s” or to be capable of counting with one to one correspondence up to thirty. Of the 100s of kindergarteners I taught few could do that at the beginning of of the tear and not all could do that by the end. Nor is it likely that Maya is able to actually draw an apple, a piece of cheese, a recognizable self portrait, or write her name. Three year olds scribble and perhaps draw tadpole people with legs coming out of heads. They will have a clear idea of what they’ve drawn, but a random viewer would not. AJ himself was a mystery to me. I believe he was supposed to be thirty-nine at the beginning of the book but he seemed to be as set in his ways and crotchety as someone much older. Was he a black man who suffered from seizures? Those two small details were slipped in but somehow didn’t come together to paint a picture of him. And then there were moments like this “She (Maya) grabs his earlobe. ‘What’s that?’ she asks. Leaving me to wonder what is she talking about? It’s an earlobe! AJ goes on to explain that his ear was once pierced but we never “see” what Maya caught Maya’s attention. This is a sweet manuscript in about a third or fourth draft that needed more fleshing out to live up to its potential.