Few would argue that today’s children are bombarded with an unprecedented amount of stress. While every parent’s instinct is to protect and nurture, there’s something to be said for gently preparing your child for tomorrow’s many challenges. With THE VIRTUEPOPS: How to Value Virtue Amid COV19, Stress, and Suffering, author Frances Angelina seeks to do just that, offering parents a comprehensive ‘read-aloud’ that focuses on promoting “virtuous living in fun creative ways.”
Following an opening note outlining and explaining the characters and their corresponding ‘virtues,’ Frances offers a ‘how to’ guide to parents and educators, providing advice on how to “teach and practice the virtues” with their families or students. From there, we are introduced to THE VIRTUEPOPS. Rather than adhere to a uniform delivery throughout, Frances adds poetry, pictures (deliberately reduced to sparse outlines for coloring), and songs to her storyline. The Virtuepops adventure begins in Grandma’s cozy brick home, where the boy and girl pops are introduced through their ‘welcome games.’ Over the ensuing chapters, readers meet Uncle Stevo and the rest of the family. Games are played, songs are sung, and most importantly, valuable lessons are learned (such as the importance of handwashing). At times, the overall narrative feels convoluted and even a bit repetitive due to the sheer number of characters. Still, Frances is a gifted storyteller. A self-professed children’s advocate, the author clearly has experience communicating with children. Her writing is appropriately bubbly throughout, and at no point does Frances talk down to her young audience.
Frances refers to THE VIRTUEPOPS as a “bountiful” book, and she couldn’t be more correct in her assessment. Simply put, the nearly four-hundred-page collection is a lot to take in. Fortunately, the book’s hundred or so chapters are divided into twelve sections, making it easy to add a daily visit with THE VIRTUEPOPS to any child care routine. Another notable feature is the parent/teacher notes that follow each chapter. Rather than simply dropping the next installment of the story, Frances takes a moment to explain (in great detail) the intention behind the section as well as to offer some actionable advice. Her writing is consistently wordy, and her train of thought is sometimes difficult to follow, but Frances’ knowledge and experience shine through more often than not.
Where THE VIRTUEPOPS falls short, however, is in the formatting department. With massive, run-on paragraphs stretching from margin to margin on most pages, this ‘read-aloud’ is incredibly difficult to actually read out loud. As most parents know all too well, interruptions and storytime go hand-in-hand—given THE VIRTUEPOPS current layout, keeping or finding one’s place is a near impossibility on most pages. Of course, the overall word count likely necessitated this condensed format. For that reason, splitting THE VIRTUEPOPS into smaller, more digestible portions may be the only way to address this issue properly.
With THE VIRTUEPOPS: How to Value Virtue Amid COV19, Stress, and Suffering, Frances Angelina’s protracted delivery may feel out of place in our current soundbite climate, but there’s an undeniable charm to her ‘all-in’ approach.
~James Wesikittel for IndieReader