One is a white boy with glasses who appears to be jeering at the girl on page 14 (on page 15 the text appears “And I don’t care in any way/what someone else may think or say”). There are two recurring characters in the book besides the girl* and her dog. I assumed this was just the art style, but stand corrected. The dreadlocks there seem to split into smaller, individual curly strands, which I thought represented smaller dreads clumping together as the protagonist spun. Upon closer examination, one can see foreshadowing of this in the cover image. This is why we need #ownvoices and allies in publishing. None my family or close friends wear dreads, yet I have managed to learn this very basic fact, while illustrator David Catrow has not. Once your hair is dreadlocked, it does not turn straight again overnight. At the least, it displays shocking ignorance. I haven’t been able to come up with any positive interpretation of these pages. The picture depicts our protagonist in bed, with hair apparently straightened AND in an afro. And there is this text:Ĭan change what’s deep inside, and so…” p. Except that on some pages the dreadlocks seem normal and on others they look ill-maintained. The main character appears to have dreadlocks. It is difficult to tell if a character is reoccurring without flipping back and forth repeatedly. Some pictures have incredibly detailed backgrounds while others are mostly unused space. Not weird in a whimsical, fun way, or a challenging modern style.

Unfortunately the pictures were even more of a disappointment. The pace was uneven and relied heavily on the pictures to form a cohesive story. It felt like some of Seuss’ affirming early readers, but with a larger vocabulary and a huge disconnect between the words and the pictures. This book reads like a Seuss imitation, with additional words at the end as padding. The text is rhyming, but the rhymes are at times spread over multiple pages. The girl states in first person narration that she likes herself in a variety of ways and circumstances.Įach page spread has at least one sentence and some as many as three. I Like Myself is the story of an exuberant and imaginative little girl* and her dog. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, Massachusetts, 2004. I Like Myself by Karen Beaumont, illustrated by David Catrow.

I like myself by karen beaumont