I'm Gonna Like Me: Letting Off a Little Self-Esteem - Hardcover

Curtis, Jamie Lee

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060287616 ISBN 13: 9780060287610

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2002

Synopsis

From the #1 New York Times bestselling team of Jamie Lee Curtis and Laura Cornell, creators of Today I Feel Silly and Where Do Balloons Go?, comes I’m Gonna Like Me, a funny and moving celebration of self-esteem and loving the skin you’re in.

Celebrate liking yourself! Through alternating points of view, a girl's and a boy's, Jamie Lee Curtis's triumphant text and Laura Cornell's lively artwork show kids that the key to feeling good is liking yourself because you are you.

A book to rejoice in and share, I'm Gonna Like Me will have kids letting off some self-esteem in no time!

About this title

Review:

Actor Jamie Lee Curtis and winsome illustrator Laura Cornell continue their successful collaboration (Today I Feel Silly, When I Was Little, et al.) with this paean to poise and self-assurance, I'm Gonna Like Me.

The duo sets out to "let off a little self-esteem" by following a seriously self-actualized (and gratifyingly quirky) boy and girl throughout their day on alternating pages. The kids take turns carrying the lines, often switching off midsentence, to describe exactly how and why "I'm gonna like me." (Girl: "I'm gonna like me / when I'm called on to stand. / I know all my letters / like the back of my hand." Boy: "I'm gonna like me / when my answer is wrong, / like thinking my ruler / was ten inches long.") The call and response continues through the action-packed day, as the kids get up, go to school, have lunch, go to a birthday party, etc., until they finally get tucked in--so no opportunity for building self-esteem gets overlooked.

Young readers will like Curtis's words and the rhythmic repetition, but it's Cornell's scribbling, reminiscent of the New Yorker's Roz Chast, that makes the book stand out. From an imagined fashion-show runway walk (love that snooty fashion press) to a hilarious lunch table spread (got to get some of that "Cup o' Lettuce" and "Pork by the Foot" for your Doris Day lunch box), Cornell fills the book with funny faces and lots of laughs (the best of which might be the girl's pet turtle working out in a cage with a treadmill, next to a book titled "Exercising Your Illegal Turtle"). (Ages 4 to 8) --Paul Hughes

From the Back Cover:

Celebrate liking yourself! Through alternating points of view, a girl's and a boy's, Jamie Lee Curtis's triumphant text and Laura Cornell's lively artwork show kids that the key to feeling good is liking yourself because you are you. Like the duo's first New York Times best-seller, Today I Feel Silly and Other Moods That Make My Day, this is an inspired book to rejoice in and share. I'm Gonna Like Me will have kids letting off some self-esteem in no time!

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0060287616
• ISBN 13: 9780060287610
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Cornell Laura