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My daughter, who's usually too shy to speak up in class, asked me to read it three times in a row the first night — she especially loved the page where the child finally shares their poem out loud. It's become our new bedtime favorite, and I've noticed her whispering little rhymes to herself before

The pacing of Joseph Coelho’s verse is what got me—it reads aloud like a warm conversation, and my shy six-year-old actually asked to read a page by herself. The teacher character’s gentle encouragement feels so real, and it’s sparked a little poetry game at our dinner table ever since.

The way the teacher in the story gently nudges the child toward poetry feels so true to life, and the lyrical text reads aloud beautifully. I just wish the illustrations had been a bit more vivid for younger kids, but it’s a lovely pick for a quiet bedtime read.