Review - Some People Do

Some People Do
by Frank Lowe
illustrated by Josh Hara
Date: 2019
Publisher: BQB Publishing
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book non-fiction
Pages: 54
Format: e-book
Source: NetGalley

As a parent, discussing diversity with your child can be difficult, especially if you have your own questions. Some People Do boils this topic down to provide the simplest of answers. By the time your child finishes reading this book, they will have been introduced to all facets of people, without any one being more revered than the other.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

This is fairly long for a picture book, but it's well worth reading. Some People Do shows, in gentle rhyme, many of the differences children might encounter in those around them.

The rhythm of the text is nice and the illustrations complement the words perfectly. This is close to being a pretty perfect picture book about diversity... except for one thing. The book equates mental illness with simple sadness. On a page about disabilities and differences, we have the following text:

Some people are sick, or upset, or just sad.

This is accompanied by what appears to be a child with cancer (they're bald, wearing a hospital gown, and hooked up to an IV)... beside a healthy-looking--albeit upset--child being comforted by another. I do realize that the author was limited because of the rhyme scheme, but I really don't like how this minimizes mental illness such as severe depression. By putting the depressed child on the same page with the physically ill one, the illustration gets it right... but the text fails by referring to the child with mental illness as "just sad". (The inclusion of the word "upset" doesn't really work, either, for the same reason.)

Aside from that, though, I really liked seeing all of the different forms of diversity. From religion to preferring dogs or cats, there are plenty of topics covered here. The book may be long, but it's a quick read, and the catchy repeating refrain helps keep the whole thing light... even though it's dealing with a fairly serious topic.

Thank you to NetGalley and BQB Publishing for providing a digital ARC.

Premise: 4/5
Meter: 4/5
Writing: 3/5
Illustrations: 3/5
Originality: 4/5

Enjoyment: 4/5

Overall: 3.71 out of 5