Rating: WORTHY!
This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
In what's looking like a series here, I got the welcome chance to review a second young children's book from the same writer (Alloway) and illustrator (Sanfelippo) team who brought us The Map Challenge which I positively reviewed yesterday. Who says Britain and Argentina can't get along? Okay, you got me. No one says that. I just made it up to get attention!
Seriously, this book explores ADHD in the same way the other book took a look at dyslexia. In this book, the main character is Izzy, who can't forget that someone stole the classroom rabbit's food. She has a form of ADHD and cannot focus on the math lesson. Eventually she gets everyone involved in the crucial effort to find that poor rabbit's crunchy snacks.
The nice thing about these books is that they don't pick on the one with the condition, nor do they put him or her in a negative light. Instead, they emphasize the positive, and it's because of her 'super powers' that come as part and parcel of ADHD that Izzy is able to recall things and make connections that others do not - so, yes, you got it - she solves the mystery!
As usual (so it seems!) in the back of these books are teacher and parent resource pages, advising on certain aspects of (in this case) ADHD, and discussing events in the story and ways to improve on some of the deficits of attention that may hamper an individual at times (and no, it doesn't involve medication!). I liked this book as much as I liked the first one. Izzy was actually rather endearing, and I commend this as a worthy read.
