What Can a Citizen Do?
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
“[This] charming book provides examples and sends the message that citizens aren’t born but are made.” —The Washington Post
This is a book about what citizenship—good citizenship—means: Across the course of several seemingly unrelated but ultimately connected actions by different children, we watch how kids turn a lonely island into a community—and watch a journey to what the world could be.
With beautiful illustrations and rhyming text, What Can a Citizen Do? is the latest collaboration from the team behind Her Right Foot: New York Times–bestselling author Dave Eggers and acclaimed artist Shawn Harris. It’s a delightfully engaging way for young readers to be inspired about the meaning of citizenship and the positive role they can play in our country and our world.
“Obligatory reading for future informed citizens.” —The New York Times
“An absolute delight.” —Maile Meloy, New York Times–bestselling author of Do Not Become Alarmed
“[A] must-have book.” —School Library Journal
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In manifesto-style language, Eggers (The Lifters) exhorts readers to get together and get involved ("Do something for another. Don't you dare doubt that you can!"), while elaborate cut-paper illustrations by Harris (Her Right Foot) follow a group of children who slowly transform a little island with a single tree into a lively tree house society. When a posted "No trumpets" sign excludes a trumpet player, the founders amend the sign to "OK trumpets," showing that building community, literally and figuratively, demands a willingness to compromise. Eggers's narration is sometimes literal, sometimes oblique ("Yes! A citizen can be a bear," he writes, as the kids welcome a huge bear to their group), but it's never less than stirring. The dimensionality and complexity of Harris's illustrations, meanwhile, beautifully embody the messy realities and exciting potential of the civic enterprise. The cast of characters is forthrightly diverse, including a girl wearing a hijab and a child of indeterminate gender wearing a baseball cap, big boots, and a tutu. As Eggers writes, "Who can a citizen be?/ A citizen is just like you." Ages 5 8.
