Gr 1--3--With a directness similar to Jordan Scott's I Talk Like a River, this story addresses the stigma surrounding dyslexia. While drawing is like breathing for the boy, he knows he is the slowest reader in his class. He is completely isolated by his fear of being found out until he realizes that he can make sense of what he's reading if he takes his time and uses familiar words like stepping stones. His curiosity to know how a story turns out powers him forward with reading while he discovers that writing words can bring his drawings to life. It helps to know that Einstein, Leonardo, and Picasso, among others in his Slow Readers Hall of Fame, shared the same challenge. Talbott speaks from personal experience, as an author's note explains, and does a brilliant job of illuminating the feeling of dyslexia through his watercolor and colored pencil illustrations. He shows us how turning a word into a picture helps with memory. Readers see a page with a few legible words in a sea of squiggles and a double-page spread mostly covered in encyclopedia clippings with an overwhelmed little face peering over the top. VERDICT Leavened with humor, charm, and a child's self-empowerment, this is an important book both for struggling readers and for classmates who need to cultivate a dose of empathy.--Jan Aldrich Solow, formerly Fairfax County P.S., VA

Inspired by his own childhood, Talbott details the experiences of a dark-haired, light-skinned child who loves drawing and stories, but is "the slowest reader" in their class. Seamless interplay between the text and the art, rendered in ink, colored pencil, and watercolor, amplifies the text. About the child's experience with transitioning to chapter books that have few illustrations: "It was a rain of terror./ My drawing pad was my safe place." The attendant art shows the narrator using an oversize notebook as a tent, hiding from a barrage of precipitation; interspersed red text, emulating rainfall at a slant, reads, "I could/ pick out/ the/ words/ that/ I knew/ but/ the rest/ looked/ like/ squiggles." Emphasizing sheer persistence as the way through, this is a personal, visually arresting read for those who may find themselves learning at a different pace. Back matter features an author's note. Ages 4--8. (Sept.)

"I was the slowest reader in my class," confides the boy in this expressive picture book. He loves drawing, which comes naturally to him, but as his classmates become faster and better as readers, he feels left behind, intimidated by long words, and ashamed. Working through his discouragement and bolstered by his curiosity and love of stories, he creates useful strategies, such as breaking long words into smaller, more understandable ones. Gradually, he makes progress. He draws a "Hall of Fame" to celebrate famous people who were slow readers. No longer afraid of words, he befriends them, becoming a storyteller through words and pictures. In an appended note, Talbott reveals that the story is based on his own childhood. Created with watercolors and colored pencils, the imaginative illustrations show a boy running from a flock of flying books, confined behind a wall of gray bricks covered in small-print words, and lost in a forest where the undulating roots and branches of trees are covered with complex terminology. An encouraging picture book for those who struggle with reading.

A slow reader gains confidence. Strongly influenced by Talbott's own childhood reading journey, a young tot with a mop of brown hair and pale skin loves art, but reading doesn't come as naturally. Crayons and colored pencils create imaginative worlds, but the words on a page crowd together, forming an impenetrable wall, with the youngster barely able to peer over. The rest of the class seemingly soars ahead, turning page after page, but the books (in the protagonist's mind) give chase, flying menacingly like a scene from Hitchcock: "And they were coming for me! / So many words! So many pages!" Talbott expertly captures the claustrophobic crush of unknown vocabulary, first as a downpour of squiggles from the sky, then as a gnarled, dark forest with words lining the branches. But reading slowly doesn't mean not reading at all. The youngster learns to search for familiar words, using them as steppingstones. And there are advantages: "Slow readers savor the story!" There is even a "Slow Readers Hall of Fame" included, featuring Albert Einstein, Sojourner Truth, and many others. Talbott excels at evincing concepts visually, and this talent is in evidence here as his protagonist first struggles then gains mastery, surfing confidently down a wave of words. Patience and curiosity (along with some fierce determination) can unlock incredible stories. (This book was reviewed digitally.) A striking visual representation of how the label "bad reader" can feel. (author's note) (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

"Drawing always came naturally to me," says the protagonist of this autobiographical picture book based on Talbott's early life. Words are another story. Though he loves words "one at a time," long sentences make him feel lost in the woods -- a theme picked up by the book's title and by the illustrations' imagery. In the watercolor, colored-pencil, and ink pictures, books fly at him like so many bats or birds of prey; trees are menacingly twisted into and around words; and an entire spread of newsprint becomes a gray, densely packed "Wall of Shame." He feels "alone and lost in a world of words" and worries: what if his classmates find out he can't keep up with them? As he comes up with strategies to forge his own path -- reading at his own pace, looking for words he knows and letting them lead him into a story -- the illustrations' palette slowly lightens. Then he begins to experiment with how to write stories. He tears down his Wall of Shame and creates a Hall of Fame of slow readers -- Einstein and Shakespeare among them. And now the wall carries a new sign: "Slow readers savor the story!" In an appended note, Talbott relates his childhood struggle with dyslexia and how he wrote this story to help others. Dean Schneider January/February 2022 p.138(c) Copyright 2022. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.