Just Shine!: How to Be a Better You (Signed Book)

by Sonia Sotomayor

Overview

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Just Ask! comes a sweet and powerful story about being true to yourself and shining your brightest. How will you help people shine?

There once was a little girl who grew up in Puerto Rico with an incredible ability—she was able to make everyone around her shine. She listened, she understood, she worked hard, and she brought out the beauty in each person she met.

In a story inspired by her mother’s ability to help people see their own brilliance, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor shows readers how helping others shine makes the whole world brighter.

With art by award-winning illustrator Jacqueline Alcántara, Just Shine will help readers find their own inner glow—and recognize that glow in those around them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798217041527
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	09/09/2025
Edition description:	Signed Edition
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	9.31(w) x 11.25(h) x 0.33(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Sonia Sotomayor was born in the Bronx, New York. She earned a BA from Princeton University and a JD from Yale Law School. She served as assistant district attorney in New York County, and then as a litigator at Pavia & Harcourt. In 1991, President George H. W. Bush nominated her to the US District Court, Southern District of New York. In 1997, President William Jefferson Clinton nominated her to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. President Barack Obama nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on May 26, 2009, and she assumed this role August 8, 2009, becoming the first Latina to serve in this position. She is the author of My Beloved World, Turning Pages, The Beloved World of Sonia Sotomayor, Just Ask! Be Different, Be Brave, Be You, and Just Help! How to Build a Better World.

Jacqueline Alcántara is a freelance illustrator and artist who spends her days drawing, writing, and globe-trotting with her dog, Possum. She is particularly excited about promoting inclusiveness and diversity in children’s literature and the illustration field in general. Her debut picture book, The Field, written by Baptiste Paul, was named a Best Book of 2018 by School Library Journal, Horn Book, Kirkus Reviews, and Shelf Awareness. Freedom Soup, written by Tami Charles, has been named a Kids IndieNext Pick and a Kirkus Best Book of 2019, and has received four starred reviews! Jacqueline lives in Detroit, Michigan. You can visit her online at JacquelineAlcantara.com, on X at @_Jacqueline_Ill or on Instagram at @_Jacqueline_Alcantara.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Just Shine!:

"This is a timely reminder that a remarkable sense of community can emerge through ordinary means. Alcántara’s dreamy, ornate marker-and-gouache artwork emphasizes the beauty of kindness. A thoughtful primer on the transformative power of goodness." —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2025-05-30
A Supreme Court justice offers guidance on how to brighten the world—and an ode to her late mother.

Beginning with an excerpt from the Homeric Hymns, Sotomayor presents a graceful tribute to her mother, Celina, whose compassion and generosity still linger with her. The lessons Celina imparted form the crux of this story, shared in brief, stylized snapshots that underscore how “she lit up everyone around her.” In the sugar cane fields of Puerto Rico, young Celina summoned the bravery to steer her confused, sick mother back home amid the night’s darkness. Growing up alongside her strict older sister, Celina beautified their home through her daily hard work. Other examples—Celina befriending a lonely elderly woman, nourishing a nephew’s artistic dreams, leveraging her nursing skills to heal others—come together for a portrait of a woman who “showed her love and brought brightness to her family, her community, and the world.” Sotomayor punctuates each glimpse of a good deed with an explicit affirmation, and though Celina occasionally comes across as an almost overly idealized, uncomplicated subject, on the whole, this is a timely reminder that a remarkable sense of community can emerge through ordinary means. Alcántara’s dreamy, ornate marker-and-gouache artwork emphasizes the beauty of kindness.

A thoughtful primer on the transformative power of goodness.(Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews