Smoot by M. Cuevas

Cuevas, Michelle. Smoot. Illustrated by Sydney Smith. Tundra Books, 2017.  Smoot is the story of an adventurous shadow that is attached to a rather unadventurous boy until one day Smoot finds himself detached and free to live out his wildest dreams. Even other shadows are inspired in this short but warm tale on the importance of childish joy in the simple things. Young readers will enjoy the 48 pages of colourful images that accompany the story though they would likely best enjoy the story read to them as some of the vocabulary may be tricky for young readers. The illustrations are similar to some of Tundra Book’s other publications such as If a Horse Had Words and will delight adults in addition to younger readers. This would be a lovely recommendation for any young reader who enjoys Peter Pan’s shadow since there are a number of similarities in the shadows’ demeanours. The slightly oversized size of the book makes this an excellent choice for classroom or library storytimes. In fact, this story could easily be used as part of a storytime program where children could be asked what brings them joy or even asked to act it out with their shadows. Overall, I would primarily recommend this book to parents and libraries though elementary teachers may find this work to be beneficial to start discussions about students’ hopes and dreams. Recommended: 3 out of 4 starsReviewer: Lorisia MacLeod