The Power of Yet, picture book fun-with something to say

I spent most of the 2022 school year in a classroom where “Yet” was in large poster board letters on the wall. Then surrounding that word were several short statements encouraging students like “I can’t do that”, which led directly to that large word. The Power of Yet is a picture book by Maryann Cocca-Leffler for pre-K through second graders that primes them to the power of that simple, three-letter word.

In The Power of Yet, readers quickly meet a small pig who’s being helped by his mom as he tries to ride a bike. As the pages go on, the young pig tries lots of new activities but isn’t doing as well as he’d like. Not yet, his mom continues to tell him. After falling short in these activities, the pig melts down, throws a tantrum, and simply asks how he can get to ‘yet’.

What ensues is the soft-natured rhyming that turns a well-illustrated book, into a great illustrated book. There’s one simple sentence that sets up the situation on one page, and then directly across from it is one that answers it. The give and take is partnered with cute illustrations and the things that growing children will experience as they try, and eventually conquer new things.

The Power of Yet is the kind of book that every pre-k and kindergarten student needs to experience a couple of times before they move onto the numbered grades. Kids, students, heck anyone who is learning something needs a safe place to fail. For those younger ages ‘yet’ provides them that safe space that it’s normal not to be able to do, understand or accomplish something the first time that they attempt it.

This is targeted at those young readers as an illustrated or picture book. Because of that, it’s meant to be presented to them in a read-to-me, or storytelling manner. This affords readers those opportunities to provide examples, ask questions or interject real-world instances that kids will relate to. It’s a book where kids will know what’s going to happen at the end, but a story that they’ll need reassurances multiple times that what they’re experiencing is normal.

It’s also a lesson that they’ll still be encountering when they’re in fifth grade, as evidenced by many classrooms that they’ll see. The Power of Yet is a soft, gentle entry into getting young elementary students to think about things that they’re struggling with or those that they’re not succeeding in.  Sometimes when I teach students will say “I can’t do that”. Depending on the student and the mood of the classroom, I’ll say “You certainly can’t do it with that attitude”, or I might say some Yoda quip, but I’ve also just started saying “yet”, at the end of their sentence. I’ll then have them re-state what they said but put ‘yet’ at the end of it.

If you read to a pre-k or kindergarten-aged kid then put The Power of Yet on your radar. It’s an excellent read-aloud book that has waves of emotion and the opportunity to really make audiences laugh and learn.

The Power of Yet is by Maryann Cocca-Leffler and available on Abrams Appleseed, an imprint of Abrams Books.

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