Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss. ( )

Australian author/illustrator team Davina Bell and Allison Colpoys, who previously collaborated on Captain Starfish (originally published as The Underwater Fancy-Dress Parade) and Under the Love Umbrella, join forces again in this lovely picture-book exploration of intelligence. The rhyming text describes the many different kinds of activities and personal qualities that require intelligence, thereby highlighting that there are many different kinds of smarts, while the colorful artwork depicts those activities and qualities...

Having greatly enjoyed Captain Starfish, I was eager to pick up All the Ways to Be Smart, which has a bright, colorful cover that drew me right in. I appreciated the narrative, with its message about the many kinds of intelligence - emotional intelligence, creative intelligence - since I think many people (including kids) might think that academic intelligence is the only sort that matters. An online friend didn't care for the text here, and I do think that it sometimes felt a little too convenient and list-like, but I was willing to forgive it, because overall I cared for it, and because I found the artwork simply beautiful! Allison Colpoys outdid herself here, with illustrations that utilize bright, jewel-like colors that leap off the page, and have a fun, stylized sensibility that just works on the page. Needless to say, I particularly loved the scenes in which the children are dressed up as witches! I wish Colpoys would do a Halloween book! Recommended to young children who wonder about smarts, and whether they have them, and who need a reminder that there are lots of ways to be intelligent. ( )