May's Book of the Month--I Talk Like a River

May’s Book of the Month is the heartfelt and stunning picture book, I TALK LIKE A RIVER, written by Jordan Scott and illustrated by Sydney Smith.

As the narrator explains to readers, “I wake up each morning with the sounds of words all around me. And I can’t say them all. The P in pine tree grows roots inside my mouth and tangles my tongue. The C is a crow that sticks in the back of my throat. The M in moon dusts my lips with a magic that makes me only mumble.”

So he stays “quiet as a stone.”

After an especially difficult day at school, the boy’s dad takes him to the river, whose water moves like the boy speaks. This “proud” river, with all its “bubbling, churning, whirling, and crashing.” And the calm “beyond the rapids, where the water is smooth and glistening.” This river stutters, just like him.

Equating the boy’s his struggles to speak with the natural world, from the early morning frustration of sounds he can’t make, to the moment he identifies with the movement of the river, is a device that works perfectly in the hands of poet Scott, a stutterer himself.

And if his beautiful language doesn’t send you racing to your library or bookstore to hold a copy of the book yourself, then the illustrations should. Smith’s watercolor, ink, and gouache art is truly masterful. And wait until you see the gatefold!!!

I TALK LIKE A RIVER is a perfect example of what picture book-making can achieve as an art form.

--Lynn