A little girl longs to see beyond the scary sights on the sidewalk and the angry scribbling in the halls of her building. When her teacher writes the word beautiful on the blackboard, the girl decides to look for something beautiful in her neighborhood. Her neighbors tell her about their own beautiful things. Her search for “something beautiful” leaves her feeling much happier. She has experienced the beauty of friendship and the power of hope.

There are two reasons I like this book. First, the author pushes the reader to think. In the picture book Something Beautiful, one would assume that the book may discuss race. In the contrary, the book talks about a young African American girl who is trying to find something that is beautiful to her, but everything around her seems to lack beauty. Her neighbor has trash, homeless people and graffiti on the buildings. The reader must challenge themselves to think about the meaning of the word beautiful. Second, Chris Soenptiet, the illustrator, does an outstanding job. The pages are filled with bright colors, leaving no white spaces. On the last two pages, Chris only illustrates, the young girl and the mother. This weighs heavily on the importance of the girl being beautiful to her mother’s eye. The purpose of this book is for everyone to understand that beauty comes in different sizes, shape and meaning. ( )

Wow! The illustrations are so lifelike! What a great message to send to children as well! We choose to name our something beautiful! We can be sad looking at things we can't change or we can try to make a change and be positive. I also like that the author has been a family counselor. I will look into more by this author and/ or illustrator. ( )

I enjoyed this book for many reasons. The overall message of this story is extremely important and would be a valuable book to read in the classroom. The message of this story is responsibility and the taking charge in your life. I loved the overall plot of the story and how the little girl searches around her neighborhood for something beautiful. Eventually she realizes there is beauty in everything, and decides to clean and fix her neighborhood to make it even more beautiful. This idea of taking responsibility is something that could greatly benefit students, who may be in a similar situation. The writing is well paced, and has some repetition making it a good book for kids to read aloud. The illustrations do a great job of enhancing the story and are crucial to the story line, because the little girls neighborhood is illustrated as a dirty and lower income city neighborhood. This pushes readers to consider other perspectives and how other people might live. This would be a good book to read to students in every area including rural, suburban, and even urban. The urban students may be able to relate to the story, while the suburban and rural students will be able to learn something new. ( )

This book would be good for a lesson on appreciating what you have in life and looking for the beauty not only around you but within yourself.