Hurry Up! A Book About Slowing Down is apt advice and a great read

Less is more. A children’s book that capture that essence is truly the stuff of good-night book legend. Hurry Up! By kate Dopirak with illustrations by Christopher Silas Neal is one of those books. It’s the perfect pairing of illustrations, words and message that allow for the book to be read once a night or re-read a couple of times in one sitting. This is a great good-night book that audiences one through seven will enjoy.

That is a huge age range for an illustrated book and Hurry Up! accomplishes this be doing exactly what its name implies. The book follows a five year-old kid as they go about their day. They wake up in a hurry, rush to school, and rush through their work and race to get home to walk the dog. It all goes to a breakneck pace until our main character simply yells STOP!

From there they take time to actually play with the dog, look at the homes on the hill, follow the rainbow and check out the moths who are attracted to the porch light.  The pictures contrast the busy tone of the first half of the book very well. When our character is stressed out there is more white space on the pages. However, when they finally relax and learn to soak life in the pages become corner to corner full color.

Even as you read this description of the book you can probably envision yourself reading it to a toddler, pre-schooler or early elementary aged reader. This is the kind of book that allows it to be read once, if the child is sleepy, but has enough detail that lets the adult reading the book read it again, pointing out things that they didn’t talk about the first time. That also applies to early elementary readers who are diving into the book themselves. There are a couple sight words that they’ll recognize, but for the most part it’s a book that kids don’t mind if it’s read to them or if they read it solo.

The message is the other part. Parents of small children, for one reason or the other, tend to hurry. Sometimes it’s valid and other times it’s for more frivolous reasons. Hurry Up!, A Book About Slowing Down lets parents know that kids want to, and can benefit from slowing down. Dare I say, kids and parents both could benefit from doing that more often.

Audiences that have a reader who presents it in just that perfect way and pacing will have it on their favorite rack of books for a long period of time. However, even those passive kids that stumble across the book by themselves will love it for a little while.

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