When Oliver Speaks - Kimberly Garvin - ★★★.½

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AUTHOR: Kimberly Garvin
ILLUSTRATOR: Saadiq Wicks
GENRE: Children's Picture Book
PUBLICATION DATE: July 26, 2017
RATING: 3.5 stars

This is a book that has its heart in the right place. Oliver is a seven year old who is great in many activities but hates to speak. The reason? He has a stutter. After escaping his school speaking assignment on “All About Me” for a long time, he approaches his mother for help. She makes him realise that his stutter is a part of who he is and he needs to accept it willingly. This marks a turnaround in his thinking.

The moral of the story is fabulous. You actually feel for Oliver when he stutters, “I don’t want them to know all about me.” So many children lose their confidence because of their so-called shortcomings. But if they accept it, laugh at it, and don’t shy away from it, life can certainly be a bit easier for them. That’s where this book does really well. The message comes out very clearly. I do wish the end weren’t so abrupt. It would have been nice to see Oliver’s classmates accepting him for who he is, further increasing his self-confidence. Instead, the book ends with his making the ‘All About Me” presentation in front of his class, saying that he is a person who stutters.

In terms of content, the story goes very smoothly and will be fairly easy for its target readers except for a couple of issues. The definition of stuttering as given in the book is like a dictionary definition of the problem. Instead of using words such as ‘disruption’ and ‘disfluencies’, the book should have stuck to a simplified explanation that would resonate better with its young readers. Also, there’s a word usage error. (I hate such errors in children’s books even more than usual because kids learn the language from books.) A sentence reads, “Does you’re not wanting to give your presentation have anything to do with your stutter?” It should be “your”, not “you’re”.

The illustrations were cute but they were also uninspired. Quite a lot of the illustrations of Oliver’s face are reused on multiple pages. One page says Oliver liked to use his imagination. But the drawings on that page only showed Oliver’s face in a variety of expressions. It becomes boring to see the same sketches again and again, especially as children relish the illustrations as much as they enjoy reading the story. But yes, plus points for making Oliver a person of colour.

The book is certainly worth reading for its moral and for the idea of self-acceptance.

Thank you to Indigo River Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review.

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