There are few lessons more important than that of exercising patience—especially in a world that seems built around the concept of instant gratification. IMPATIENT PATIENCE tells the story of an eight-year-old girl named Patience, who, despite her name, struggles with maintaining composure when she doesn’t instantly get what she wants. The child, who just so happens to be incredibly fast, has struggled with the concept of patience since the age of three. When she wants something, she wants it now! Be it standing in line at a store or waiting on a meal, Patience is often anything but, well, patient. While her family tries their best to guide the spirited child, it’s ultimately an act of recklessness that provides Patience with a lasting lesson. Bedridden following an accident involving her bike and an unforgiving section of road, Patience becomes a patient, and for the first time in her life, is forced to take things slow. Ultimately, with the help of her mother, Patience reflects on her accident and learns a most invaluable lesson in the process: sometimes, ‘slow and steady’ is the best way to be.
IMPATIENT PATIENCE provides readers with a perfect entry point for Michael A. Brown’s What I Tell Myself series, a fourteen-book (and counting) collection that seeks to convey timeless lessons to readers at a young age. Based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Brown leans heavily on his experience as an educator and counselor, crafting authentic characters, placing them in contemporary situations, and offering teachable solutions to the problems that arise. That being said, IMPATIENT PATIENCE is, first and foremost, a children’s book, and independent of Brown’s intentions, the story is both captivating and well-told. From cover to cover, the book informs and entertains. Utilizing clever wordplay via a series of loosely-constructed couplets and triplets, Brown’s prose is pitch-perfect throughout. Readers from all walks of life will be able to identify with Patience and her impulsive tendencies, and parents will undoubtedly appreciate the invaluable lesson that is taught. As for the visual component, Lovyaa Garg’s arresting illustrations, pairing vivid, broad-stroke colors with a timeless, cartoon-esque drawing style, ensure that readers of any age and level will have no issue discerning where they are in the story. Utilizing gate-fold scenes that play out across multiple pages, IMPATIENT PATIENCE is a rare example of a read-along that readers can return to when they are ready to tackle those ‘big’ words on their own.
With IMPATIENT PATIENCE, author Michael A Brown and illustrator Lovyaa Garg have added another entry to their What I Tell Myself books–in this case a beautifully drawn, thoughtfully written tale about a little girl named Patience who is anything but, and the invaluable lesson she learns–in what is shaping up to be an enduring contemporary Children’s Literature series.
~James Weiskittel for IndieReader