This picture book is the fifth installment in Dr. Jillian Roberts’s Just Enough: Difficult Topics Made Easy series. As a child psychologist, University of Victoria assistant professor of educational psychology, and former primary teacher, Roberts is abundantly qualified when it comes to suggestions for how adults might respond to children’s challenging questions. This timely teaching resource uses diversity in nature as a lead-in to compare the differences between people on both the outside and the inside. Consideration of eye and skin colours, height, and the ways people interact with the world leads to thinking about cultural differences such as language, religion, and traditional celebrations. This introduction to diversity mentions different types of families, homes, foods, clothes, jobs, and ways to show love. This straightforward treatment of diversity encourages readers to think more about how we are alike rather than how we are different. A valuable addition to a school’s social emotional learning resources.

32 pp., 8.5 × 8.5", colour illustrations

Source: Association of Book Publishers of BC - BC Books for Schools (2021-2022)

Jillian Roberts' profile page

Cindy Revell planned on becoming an artist ever since her first taste of wax crayons during her childhood in Carrot River, a small town in Saskatchewan. After some very uncreative forays into the working world Cindy realized that she needed to get back to art and went to college receiving her diploma in Environmental Graphic Design. Cindy worked as a designer and illustrator eventually going on to become an award winning freelance illustrator.

Her illustrations have been used on billboards, wine bottles, books, magazines, calendars, furniture, packaging and numerous children's books all over North America. She was nominated in 2001 for a Governor General's award for children's book illustration (Mallory and the Power Boy). Some of her clients are: Adobe, L.A. Times, Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, Better Homes and Gardens, Cornell University, Penguin Putnam, Annick Press, Orca Book Publishers and Scholastic.

As well as being an illustrator, she is an accomplished oil painter. Several years of regular oil painting classes, numerous international and provincial workshops and traveling to view and learn from the old masters as well as her design and illustration training have helped her develop as a traditional realist.

Cindy loves the work of the Flemish oil painters and Spanish artist, Luis Melendez, while her illustration has been inspired by folk, medieval, and eastern art. Her oil painting and illustration are vastly different from one another, the oil paintings tending to be simple and elegant while the illustrations are full of pattern and whimsy. The common element in her oil paintings and illustrations is her use of colour which is always rich and lush.

Cindy is represented by Deborah Wolfe Ltd. See her work at http://www.cindyrevell.com.

Cindy Revell's profile page

• Commended, BC Books for BC Schools
• Commended, CCBC Best Books for Kids & Teens

“Child-friendly art, appropriately reflecting the ‘rainbow’ of human differences, accompanies the purposeful, well-intentioned text.”

The Horn Book