Published: 22nd June 2022
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Illustrator: Erika Maza
Pages: 32
Format: Picture Book
★ ★ ★ – 3 Stars
A joyful, empowering call to be the hero of your OWN story!
A girl opens up a book looking for the story that’s perfect for HER and tumbles inside. But Goldilocks is not her story, and nor is Jack and the Beanstalk or Little Red Riding Hood… There’s only one thing for it: she’s going to have to write her own story – and this time, SHE will be the hero.
A celebration of the stories we ALL love and the stories we are yet to write, this vivid, irresistible picture book introduces the terrific new partnership of Smriti Halls (bestselling author of I’m Sticking with You illustrated by Steve Small and Rain Before Rainbows illustrated by David Litchfield) and Erika Meza (award-winning illustrator of My Two Border Towns written by David Bowles).
Interestingly, it’s not about diverse stories, not exactly anyway. Instead it is about reading fairytales and other stories and not connecting with any of the misadventures of the main characters. Our narrator wants to find their own story and they want to write adventures that suit them.
As our character discovers a book to read they soon find themselves inside the story and playing a role in the narrative. It’s a nice twist to have the idea of being in these plots dismissed, it isn’t the dream of everyone to play these parts, and as we stumble through the pages we see various other fairytales play out and be rejected.
The rhyme is fun, it’s very lyrical and would be fun to read aloud. Combined with the interactive illustrations that twist and turn and interact with the words there is a lot of fun to be had reading the story.
The ending is empowering in that you can be the author of your own story, put yourself into an epic tale with dangers, friendships, and foes. In a way it would be a good lesson that you don’t have to be the person you read about in stories. You can make up stories that include who you are.
You can purchase Stop! That’s Not My Story via the following
