Wiggling Words

An unusual and rather beautiful picturebook, that performs a valuable task. Using her own lived experience, the winner of the World Illustration Award has created a wonderful visual representation of what dyslexia feels like. The frustration of the child, who wants to know what is happening, to understand the story and to get to the end of the book, but for whom the words keep jumping around the page, not making any sense, is so very apparent in the body language and expressions. The words become a dominating, insurmountable mountain taking up nearly the whole page, making the would-be reader feel very small. But this is actually an empowering and joyous story, because we see the child reaching for an ‘o’ and then another and she turns them into glasses. Next, a pair of ‘b’s are turned into a butterfly, gracefully flying away. By creatively combining different letters with the power of her imagination, her joy in words really takes flight. All children will recognise the challenge of mastering decoding of text and will be able to empathise with children facing even greater difficulties. The empowering message, that all children can be successful, is backed up with a note from the author explaining her experience and offering tips that helped her, which will be invaluable to parents and teachers. The two-tone, hand- lettered illustrations are extremely effective.  In addition, the font and yellow paper are chosen specifically to support dyslexic readers, which demonstrates the care with which this clever text has been put together.