"I Speak Like a River" Wins Boston Globe-Horn Book Award in the Picture Book Category
Honbuk Review
"I Speak Like a River" is a meditation on self-acceptance.
It makes every child find their own voice and rethink the standards the world has set for them.
It is also an important and unforgettable gift that embodies the beauty and elegance of nature.

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★New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year
★Washington Post Illustrated Book of the Year
★Publisher's Weekly Picture Book of the Year
★Honbuk Picture Book of the Year
★Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, and Wall Street Journal Picture Book of the Year

Like a river that flows without stopping even though it bends, bumps, and breaks
A dazzling story of growth and development of a child who overcomes pain!

Without a doubt, this is the best picture book of the year.
_Book page
It is a dazzling story of growth that contains the process of accepting oneself as different from others.
_Kirkus Review
It warmly comforts the hearts of children who stutter and their families.
_The New York Times
The amazing healing power of beautiful nature unfolds like magic.
_Honbuk
Embracing outsiders with restrained language and overflowing love.
_School Library Journal

Children who grow up overcoming inner pain

Every morning, the child wakes up to the sound of words.
The sound of the 'pine tree' seen beyond my room window, the 'crow' perched on the pine branch, and the 'moon' fading in the morning sky.
But the child cannot say anything out loud.
The moment you open your mouth, words take root in your mouth, tangle with your tongue, stick to the back of your throat, and erase your lips.
The child just licks his lips.
I just keep my mouth shut like a stone.


When I go to school, I sit in the back row.
I spend each day hoping that I won't have anything to say today.
But today I have to make an announcement.
The teacher asked us to take turns talking about our favorite places in the world.
The child's throat seems unusually blocked today.
My mouth doesn't move at all.


The father, who came to pick up the child at school, saw the child's gloomy face and took him to the river.
As we walk along the empty riverside, my mind becomes calm.
But soon the time of the presentation comes to mind.
I keep thinking of the countless eyes watching my twisted and distorted lips, and the countless mouths giggling and laughing.
The father gently hugs the child with tears welling up in his eyes.
Then he points to the river and says:
“Do you see how the river flows? You speak like the river.”

At that moment, the child's heart, which had been tightly shut like a stone, begins to break free from its long-held bonds.
After hearing my father's words, I looked again at the river, which was flowing while winding, swirling, crashing, and breaking.
People often say that river water flows powerfully, but the river water also flows in a groping manner.
And beyond the rough waters, there are calm waters.
The child realizes that such currents also flow within him as he stutters.
I'm talking about the gently rippling and sparkling water.
The child is just stuttering, not thinking.

It's presentation time again.
The child tells his friends about his favorite place in the world.
He speaks about the river in a calm but firmer voice than before.
Embracing the differences between themselves and others, the child takes a step toward the outside world.

A picture book that resonates deeply like a rippling river.

"I Speak Like a River" is an autobiographical story by poet Jordan Scott.
Jordan's father also said that he would come to pick up his son on days when there was a presentation at school.
It was a consideration for my son who stutters.
One day, his father took Jordan, who was feeling upset, to the river.
The main character's mantra, "I speak like a river," is actually a story Jordan's father told his son.


The intense memory of that day is said to have completely changed Jordan's view of stuttering.
For a child for whom social connections with peers are important, the realization that he or she is different from others may have caused great fear.
But the fact that the river, which he had thought to flow mightily, was flowing in a groping manner like himself brought great comfort to young Jordan.
Jordan was able to escape his sense of isolation through the river that resembled him, and he decided to express the flowing river within him through poetry.
It was the father's deep heart and beautiful nature that raised the stuttering boy into a poet.


This amazing and great healing power of nature is fully conveyed to readers thanks to Sydney Smith's delicate and beautiful illustrations.
Sydney Smith is an illustrator who enhances the strengths of the text.
He has been creating lyrical paintings using the thickness and density of lines, much like Oriental paintings, and in this book he presents a new style.
It uses colors and surfaces with little use of lines to express the child's emotional changes and situations.
The image of classmates laughing at a child who did not give a proper presentation is shown in cold colors with a lumpy shape, while the image of the river embracing the child is shown in rich, warm colors.


The book also shines with its unique and sensuous directing that makes appropriate use of scene division and arrangement.
The first scene, which shows the child's room divided into six frames, allows the reader to see the room through the eyes of a child who has just woken up.
It also hints at the situation of a child who stutters.
The highlight scene, where the child fully accepts himself as different from others through the river, is composed as an unfolding scene, unifying and expanding the child's fragmented world.
It also creates the effect of allowing the reader to directly look into the child's mind.
The reason this book lingers long after you close the book is probably because of the poet and artist's hope that it will provide comfort to all those going through difficult times.