What Do You Do with a Chance?

by Kobi Yamada, Mae Besom (Illustrator)

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Kobi Yamada is unmatched at taking big-picture concepts and making them approachable for young readers. Here is the perfect opportunity to introduce kids to 'chance.'

The award-winning creators of The New York Times best sellers What Do You Do With an Idea? and What Do You Do With a Problem? return with a captivating story about a child who isn't sure what to make of a chance encounter and then discovers that when you have courage, take chances, and say yes to new experiences, amazing things can happen.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781943200733
Publisher:	Compendium, Incorporated, Publishing & Communications
Publication date:	12/26/2017
Series:	What Do You Do with... Series
Pages:	36
Sales rank:	16,407
Product dimensions:	10.70(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Kobi Yamada is a New York Times best-selling author and the creator of many inspiring gift books as well as the president of Compendium, a company of amazing people doing amazing things. He happily lives with the love of his life and their two super fun kids in the land of flying salmon where he gets to believe in his ideas all day long. He thinks he just might be the luckiest person on the planet.


Mae Besom began her career as a character designer in Sichuan, China after graduating from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. She then decided to embrace her love of illustrations and now works as a full-time children's illustrator. She uses traditional media—both pencil and watercolor—to create texture and light within her enchanting illustrations.

Editorial Reviews

01/01/2018
PreS-Gr 2—In this delightful third story by the author and illustrator team, readers are asked the essential question: What do you do with a chance? With great deftness and imagery, Yamada and Besom explore how opportunities come to be and the emotions associated with them. Readers learn that chances, though unexpected, can consume one's thoughts. Yet, even when they desire to have a decision presented to them, fear of failure or embarrassment may stop them from reaching out and taking it. Yamada's use of simple text coupled with Besom's progressive use of watercolor takes children on a journey from fear of the unknown to courage. This title is an ideal read-aloud and discussion starter and is every bit as charming, insightful, and revelatory as its predecessors, What Do You With an Idea? and What Do You With a Problem? VERDICT Children of all ages will be inspired to take a chance as "it just might be the start of something incredible."—Maegen Rose, Collegiate School Library, New York City

School Library Journal

2017-10-16
Perfectionists and those with social anxiety will find encouragement in the reminder that embarrassment is temporary and even the fearful can choose to take chances. The tunic-clad child with shaggy, dark hair and a light complexion who appears in the duo's prior works (What Do You Do with an Idea?, 2014, and What Do You Do with a Problem?, 2016) is now presented with chances, which materialize in the form of golden, origami-style butterflies. Finally attempting to grasp one, the child falls and is mortified when it seems that others titter in amusement. Deciding it's better to avoid the possibility of future mishaps, the child ignores other chances but inside feels increasingly bereft, contemplating a safe-but-dull existence. When at last a chance thrillingly does appear again, the child decides to take the leap—literally—and feels jubilant exhilaration. Set in a pseudo-medieval fantasy world, the story makes abstract concepts usefully concrete. An ideal discussion starter at home and in the classroom, it will inspire conversations about humiliations endured (and recovered from) and chances taken (or not).Through the use of color, the watercolor-and-pencil illustrations vividly accentuate the contrast between the drabness of a risk-free life and the brilliant intensity of one fully lived.This is a book that will grow with readers: use it to inspire conversations of a philosophical nature as well as for practical problem-solving. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews