Just Ask

by Sonia Sotomayor

Click on book cover to watch a video read aloud.

“Just Ask” by Sonia Sotomayor was selected to be a quarterly school-wide book to be read aloud in the classroom.

The theme of the book is summarized in this illustration.

Each of us has our own struggles and challenges, some more readily apparent. Each turn of the page features a kid introducing his/her self along with something each loves to do. Each kid also describes a physical challenge and freely talks about it…  what it means, what each needs to do, and how it may also require them to enhance other skills. For example, the blind child learns to rely on other senses more keenly.

Reading these accounts, the teacher introduces young students to specific challenges associated with: diabetes, asthma, being wheelchair-bound, blindness, deafness, dyslexia, autism, stuttering, Tourettes syndrome, ADHD, nut allergies and Down’s syndrome. Each child’s story includes a desire that other kids would just ask them about their challenge.

This book describes individual challenges, and encourages kindness, empathy, and respect for  each individual classmate. Most of all, the author encourages kids to get to know their classmates by talking with them, and not being afraid to just ask them about what may seem different or foreign.