Big, small, curly, straight, loud, quiet, smooth, wrinkly. Lovely explores a world of differences that all add up to the same thing: we are all lovely! That is the central message of author/illustrator Jess Hong's charmingly thoughtful and unfailingly entertaining picture book story for children ages 4 to 8. "Lovely" will prove to be an enduringly popular choice and is very highly recommended for family, daycare center, preschool, elementary school, and community library collections.
The book starts off by asking the question: "What is lovely?" The simple answers let little readers know that lovely is different and comes in many forms. All people are lovely in their own way.
11 Books That Model Empathy, Read Brightly - Charnaie Gordon
This book gives me hope that the standard of lovely can progress to be inclusive and of real beauty. Imagine if this book's message was the standard definition of what and who is determined to be beautiful. This book gives me hope, goosebumps, and a feeling of being lovely!!!
librarian, Neill Public Library - Jesica Sweedler DeHart
Humorous, colorful illustrations and simple text create a celebration of the many ways people are different.
Bank Street College of Education
Hong celebrates a more open-minded version what lovely means with this very simple and expressive picture book. I won’t spoil the surprises that await inside. What I would recommend is that parents add this to their daily reading stack to raise a generation of kids who see the world as lovely in all its shapes, sizes, colors, and choices.
Kiss the Book - Cindy Mitchell
The cartoonlike people on the front cover of this disarming picture book dare readers to think of them as unlovely. Missing teeth, potbellies, pink hair, and concave faces are not features that conventional aesthetic norms appreciate. Yet, Hong’s disarmingly simple proclamation of loveliness challenges those norms. Here difference is lovely in the face of a girl with one blue eye and one brown eye. It is also found in the sharp studs on the leather jacket of a lilac-haired, nose-pierced androgynous youth. Hairy legs in stilettos and a prosthetic foot in a soccer cleat are likewise worthy of admiration. On one double-page spread, six hands in different skin tones—some smooth, one tattooed, and others sprinkled with freckles, moles, or patches of vitiligo—finger spell “l-o-v-e-l-y” in ASL. The book’s message is direct and its text simple. Readers will recognize people they’ve encountered in the world in the smiling faces of these joyous individuals. The stylized, motley multitude gathers on the final spread beneath the uplifting declaration that “We are all . . . lovely.
Booklist - Amina Chaudhri
A celebration of diversity – in all its shapes and sizes! Big, small, curly, straight, loud, quiet, smooth, wrinkly – we are all LOVELY! Colorful, bold illustrations and simple text. This is a great book to build classroom community!
Lovely,” a debut picture book written and illustrated by Jess Hong, is a lively ode to being different. “What is lovely?” the text asks. “Lovely is different.” A girl with one blue eye and one brown eye looks directly at the viewer. Then comes a series of illustrative plays on words. The word “Black” is next to a white woman wearing black clothes. On the facing page, the word “white” accompanies a black woman with white hair. On other spreads, we see a tall woman walking a short dog (“tall”) opposite a short man walking with a tall dog (“short”), and a red-haired girl with a “fluffy” cat opposite a straight-haired girl with a “sleek” snake. As with any successful picture book, the art in “Lovely” doesn’t just illustrate the text, it expands it. This is why a spread like “Fancy. Sporty. Graceful. Stompy” works so well: Illustrated with four sets of legs — hairy legs wearing fancy red stilettos, prosthetic legs playing soccer, black legs in pink ballet slippers, and fishnet-stockinged legs in punk-rock platform boots — it shows the multifarious world in all its glory. . .Tolerance. Inclusion. Compassion. Kindness. Empathy. As the song says, teach your children well — or better yet, inspire them well.
Love! Love! Love! No classical 'differences' representations, just straight up all kinds of people. A quick read, a fun palette, a cross section, a wonderful message. Well done, you!
Schuler Books & Music - Charity McMaster
Out of the dozen books in my review pile, my youngest daughter returned to Jess Hong’s book Lovely several times over. It might be Hong’s cheerful and quirky cartoonish illustrations, showing a diversity of people not only with different skin tones but with a range of features: a “sharp” punk rock granny in a spiky jean jacket, for example, or a child with one blue and one brown eye. She liked the hands spelling out “lovely” in American Sign Language, each wearing a ring that also shows its corresponding written letter. Bodies with tattoos, freckles, a pair of braces, fluffy hair and straight, hairy legs in heels – all of these, accompanied by a reassuring label of “lovely.” I think that she also liked the book’s simple message: “lovely is different, weird, and wonderful.
International Examiner - Tamiko Nimura
Lovely by Jess Hong is well…lovely! The book asks “What is lovely?” and the illustrations that follow answer that with a diverse group of opposites that are all accepted as lovely. It celebrates being different and more importantly accepting different as lovely. The illustrations are the backbone of this book, and they do a fantastic job at including many of the fabulous differences in the world.
No Time For Flashcards - PIcture Books that Promote Diversity
I get a lot requests from parents and caregivers for picture books that fall into the emotional health/self-esteem category. It’s a hard request to fill, mostly because it’s hard to search for in the catalog. This book, which fills that request, is about the many different physical traits people may have, and how those make us all lovely.
Lee Memorial Library - Librarian
Humorous, colorful illustrations and simple text create a celebration of the many ways people are different.
Bank Street College of Education
