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I Talk Like a River

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
When a boy who stutters feels isolated, alone, and incapable of communicating in the way he'd like, it takes a kindly father and a walk by the river to help him find his voice. Through this powerful and uplifting story, poet Jordan Scott uses his own experiences to reveal what it's like to be a child who feels lost, lonely, or unable to fit in. Compassionate parents everywhere will recognize how they, too, can reconnect their children to the world around them.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from July 13, 2020
      Sometimes a few words can transform a child’s life. In this autobiographical story by Canadian poet Scott (Night & Ox, for adults), a boy who stutters is given a new way to think about his speech. He describes words in his mouth and the anguish of his classroom: “All those eyes watching/ my lips/ twist and twirl,/ all those mouths/ giggling/ and laughing.” One “bad speech day,” his father picks him up from school and takes him to the quiet river, where they look for rocks and sit on the bank. “See how that water moves? That’s how you speak,” his father says. Following frustration-tinged spreads, Smith (Small in the City) zooms in on the boy’s face as he watches the river “bubbling, churning, whirling, and crashing.” He closes his eyes, taking in the words’ meaning, then ventures into the water, shown in a shimmering double gatefold. “This is what I like to remember,/ to help stop myself from crying/ I talk like a river.” Artwork makes the internal change a light-filled experience, an account of the moment in which the child experiences himself and his individual way of speaking as part of the great forces of the natural world. Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Hilary McMahon, Westwood Creative Artists. Illustrator’s agent: Emily Van Beek, Folio Jr./Folio Literary Management.

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  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

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