They're Heroes Too: A Celebration of Community

by Pat Brisson, Anait Semirdzhyan (Illustrator)

Overview

A picture-book celebration of the ordinary people—grownups and kids—who hold our world together by going about their daily lives and work.

We celebrate cops, firefighters, and soldiers, and rightly so. But let’s also celebrate teachers, bus drivers, grocery clerks, mail carriers, and the other folks who keep the world spinning around every day. And let’s give a nod to kids, too—kids who are kind and brave and help each other. They’re heroes too. In structure, flow, and pitch, very much like Pat Brisson’s Before We Eat. Anait Semirdzhyan is the illustrator of our award-winning picture book The Arabic Quilt and of The Cottonwood Tree.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780884489368
Publisher:	Tilbury House Publishers
Publication date:	07/05/2022
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	390,372
Product dimensions:	9.40(w) x 10.40(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	420L (what's this?)
Age Range:	7 - 10 Years

About the Author

Pat Brisson is the author of 20 books for young readers, including The Summer My Father Was Ten and Sometimes We Were Brave, Tummy Time Friends, and Common Critters. A graduate of Rutgers University, she is a former elementary school teacher, school librarian, and public-library reference librarian. Pat lives in New Jersey with her husband.

Anait Semirdzhyan grew up in a multicultural family and lived in several countries with diverse cultures before settling in the Seattle area with her husband and twin daughters. Her illustrations begin as pencil sketches on cold-press watercolor paper. She then inks the outlines, paints with watercolors, and scans the illustrations in order to edit them in Photoshop. She is the illustrator of The Arabic Quilt and other works that can be viewed at www.anaitsart.com.

Editorial Reviews

2022-04-13
A celebration of the everyday heroes who keep our world running smoothly.

While much of the pandemic zeitgeist involved praising the heroes who kept people healthy, fed, etc., there have not been many mainstream children’s books that have addressed these helpers. This book aims to change that but without the pandemic; the only mask is on a doctor examining a patient. Instead, Brisson and Semirdzhyan follow a young child in a red polka-dot dress and blue vest and their caretaker—both brown-skinned—as they move through their diverse city. Bouncy rhyming verses identify the heroes they see, only one of whom (a pizza delivery person) wears a superhero costume. These heroes cook and serve food, drive buses, haul away garbage, deliver mail, cut hair, and lead demonstrations (in this case, against climate change). The child points out that when kids are “brave or generous,” they are heroes, too: “You be there for me. // and I’ll be there for you.” Helping clean up a park, picking up a child’s dropped books, and sitting with someone at lunch are all things kids can do. An aftermatter note states: “Heroes are people who make the world a better place through their work, generosity, and caring interactions with others. Be a HERO.” The single- and double-page spreads show readers the many friendly faces of heroes. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Proof that anyone can choose to be a hero. (Informational picture book. 3-8)

Kirkus Reviews