What Matters by Alison Hughes
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Genre: Childrens, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (32 pages)
Age Recommendation: 3+
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reviewed by AstilbeWhat happens when one small boy picks up one small piece of litter? He doesn’t know it, but his tiny act has big consequences. From the miniscule to the universal, What Matters sensitively explores nature’s connections and traces the ripple effects of one child’s good deed to show how we can all make a big difference.
No one is ever too young or too small to change the world.
One of the things I liked about this story the most was how much meaning Ms. Hughes was able to pack into a few sentences. She shared almost everything she needed to share with the audience in the space of only a couple of sentences per page. There was no need to go into more detail than that for most of the storyline. While there were a few exceptions to this that I’ll mention in a moment, I was impressed by how well she was able to get her point across in so few words in the rest of the scenes. This was something short enough that a toddler could understand it, but it also had a message that would appeal to adult readers as well.
The narrator tried to show how a small action like throwing away a piece of trash can have a big impact on the environment over time. There were times when I had trouble understanding the connections it was trying to make between the original act of kindness and all of the good things that happened as a result of it. As much as I liked the author’s careful use of words in general, this was something that would have benefited from having more details included in it.
Good deeds don’t have to be big to be meaningful. I liked the fact that the hero of this tale was a young boy who did something that almost anyone is capable of doing and who didn’t expect any sort of reward for it. There are so many little ways a person can make the world a better place without seeking out attention for their actions or knowing how those actions would affect things in the longterm. It was nice to see this kind of behavior being given so much positive attention.
I’d recommend What Matters to environmentalists of all ages.
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