Little Shaq Takes a Chance, and misses

I saw Shaquille O’Neal’s social media manager speak once. Even prior to that, Shaq was someone who I respected and admired from many perspectives. His philanthropic work with The Boys and Girls Club and the way that he handled his professional career is one that athletes should aspire to. Her speech about working for him only solidified my opinion of him. That’s why it’s such a let down that his second children’s book, Little Shaq Takes a Chance doesn’t measure up to what it could be.

Little Shaq Takes a Chance uses O’Neal’s own experiences growing up as inspiration. His first book was simply titled Little Shaq. In Takes a Chance a young Shaquille is faced with experiencing some new things. His mother is making sushi for dinner, a food which he’s unfamiliar with and not exactly eager to try. By the time he finally convinces himself to try this new dish his family has already eaten everything.

Things don’t get much better at school when Shaq has to start an art project. The school is having an art show, Shaq has never been too creative and is scared of trying something that he doesn’t know or might not be good at. He tries painting but only makes a mess.

Little Shaq Takes a Chance is an early reader chapter book geared toward children 5 and up. From a content perspective the book is great. It teaches lessons about acceptance, working hard, positive thinking, the value of family and not giving up. The book also has some very good, age appropriate illustrations of young Shaq, his family and their life that are done by Theodore Taylor III.

The size of the text is great too. It’s as big as the font that young readers have encountered in a Dr. Seuss book, but done here in a way that gives them more independence in chapter book form.

However, all of this good is watered down by the length of each chapter. The reading level is spot-on for a 6 year old. Yet our son (and I) struggled to get though the book. The book is 73 pages long and has three chapters, thus each chapter is about 24 pages long. It’s the length of these chapters that makes the book a tough read for kids that are intended to be its demographic.

Our son can read the vocabulary in the book, but he loses interest about eight pages into each chapter. This is a young reader book; consider it a step above The Fly Guy books. Those books are much more art heavy; but feature very short chapters that give children a sense of accomplishment and also serve as a logical stopping point if they can’t read the entire book.

If Little Shaq Takes a Chance had more breaks in the story then I could easily see it succeeding as one of the go-to books for young readers as they move on to chapter books. In its current form it still serves as a positive role model with lots great lessons to learn from.  However the length that it’ll take to get through each chapter will prove to be too much except for the diehard Shaq fans and their children.