Next Shiny Object

Hudson Talbott (HudsonTalbott.com) also wrote and illustrated Schneider Family Honor winner A Walk in the Words, as well as Picturing America, River of Dreams, From Wolf to Woof, United Tweets of America, and It’s All About Me-ow, and illustrated numerous picture books, including Newbery Honor winner Show Way (by Jacqueline Woodson) and Leonardo’s Horse (by Jean Fritz), an ALA Notable and VOYA Honor Book.

“Talbott’s energetic cartoon illustrations, interspersed with dialogue between dragon and child, vividly convey how the child’s attention constantly meanders. . . . The only thing that keeps the protagonist focused is cycling. Reading about bike maintenance leads to researching Leonardo da Vinci, who ‘had ideas about everything.’ In a dream, Leonardo rescues the narrator from ‘a sea of shiny objects’ and introduces such visionaries as Galileo and Mozart—members of the Center for Outside the Box Thinking, all with their own dragons. After Leonardo reminds the narrator, ‘You can choose what to ignore and what to explore,’ the child realizes it’s OK to let some shiny objects pass. . . . Readers with ADHD will particularly empathize with the child’s curiosity and frustration. All will enjoy the clever text and animated illustrations. Encouraging.” —Kirkus Reviews“A child learns that ‘a busy mind can be a beautiful thing.’ . . . Musing about curiosity, the light-brown-skinned young narrator likens it to the feeling of ‘a friend exploring with me, or a beast bouncing me around a pinball machine.’ But the constant movement feels more frustrating than fun as the beast, pictured as a dragon, jumps from one shiny object to the next. . . . One night, drowning in a dream’s ‘sea of shiny objects,’ the child is rescued by Leonardo da Vinci, whose own long acquaintance with curiosity and distraction allow the child to reframe how to move through the world. Citing myriad creative thinkers, da Vinci offers a key piece of advice: using an established feeling of focus to ‘choose what to ignore and what to explore.’ . . . Validating dialogue . . . an upbeat picture of a child’s coming to terms with thinking outside the box.” —Publishers Weekly