Book review: Now You’re It, Journaling to Perseverance, by Dr. Tamecca Rogers and Keith Ross. Originally reviewed for Reader's Favorite.

Publisher's summary

Welcome to Your New Adventure

Grab a friend and travel with us on an adventure across frontiers, through time, and even through outer space to meet 35 ground-breaking people of color from the past and present in a celebration of triumph. Throughout this journey, you will discover inspirational and thought-provoking quotes. Please take a minute to think about what the quotes mean and how they relate to you. Quotes are not always easily understood the first time you read them, and that's okay. Read it a few times and discuss it with a friend, family member, or teacher. There's a lesson in each quote, and it's up to you to grab it.

Get to know your friends and classmates while you work together to complete the journal prompts and activities throughout the book. Take several friends on this adventure with you by selecting different partners to travel with throughout this voyage. Learn about your partners’ culture and celebrate each other’s differences. Ready, set, let’s go!

My review

Now You’re It, Journaling to Perseverance, by Dr. Tamecca Rogers and Keith Ross is a lovely non-fiction do-it-yourself guide (so to say). It allows young people (and even older ones) to discover the achievements of African Americans while encouraging them on the paths of media literacy, perseverance, inclusion, diversity, and critical thinking. The readings based on meaningful quotes that the kids or students have to understand and make sense of in their own lives are positive and engaging. They are complemented with various tasks including activities with a journaling friend. As the children come to get to know their friends better and exchange with them, they grow and learn all the important messages shared in this amazing guide.

It is indeed an incredibly clever and beautifully illustrated workbook that will be treasured by children. It includes everything that is needed to make our youth grow in an inclusive way, accepting difference and diversity and improving their critical thinking skills and so many other 21st century skills such as communication, creativity, collaboration, initiative, social skills, flexibility, and so on. I loved the way culture, knowledge is embedded into positive and fun tasks. The reader learns so much about African American icons but also about themselves and their peers. I also loved everything about the tasks: “Now you’re IT”, the picture analysis, the crosswords…
Quotes help us live. Quotes are universal wisdom. Quotes are food for thought. Quotes bring love and understanding. So let’s use them! Thank you to the authors for this perfect guide!