When Things Aren't Going Right, Go Left

Art by Peter H. Reynolds

Words by Marc Colagiovanni

Orchard Books

978-1-338-83118-4

32 pp.

Ages 4-8

March 2023

 

Of course, things don't always go right. That's life. But how we handle it when things don't go right makes for a good story when we get back on track.

From When Things Aren't Going Right, Go Left by Marc Colagiovanni, illus. by Peter H. Reynolds

In Rhode Island's Marc Colagiovanni's debut picture book, a child is burdened by a box of worries, a sack of doubts, a suitcase of fears and a knapsack of frustrations. He wants to try something that has frustrated him, worried him, scared him, and made him doubt himself. It's a pool with a diving board.

From When Things Aren't Going Right, Go Left by Marc Colagiovanni, illus. by Peter H. Reynolds

He'd attempted a dive once and had been unsuccessful, and now considers another attempt. Ah, but there are those doubts and those fears and more. Worse yet, as he attempts to leave them behind, one encumbrance at a time, the annoying creatures shout back at him. Can he make them manageable or leave them behind to take control?

From When Things Aren't Going Right, Go Left by Marc Colagiovanni, illus. by Peter H. Reynolds

The message that it's okay to put down your burdens is an important one for all of us who sometimes feel we need to power through everything and anything. Marc Colagiovanni obviously knows this and, by using an example of a child attempting something that both scares and frustrates him, he reminds us that not everything is going to go right or be easy. It could be trying a formidable dive or making a new friend or overlooking those pesky demons that cause us stress and worry. We all have them, and we all need to find coping strategies to get beyond them. The message is meaningful, but the medium is everything.

From When Things Aren't Going Right, Go Left by Marc Colagiovanni, illus. by Peter H. Reynolds

The artwork from Peter H. Reynolds takes When Things Aren't Going Right, Go Left from social emotional advice to a visualization for coping. Though some may see a child attempting a dive as trivial, to that child those burdens of worry and fear are great. They are heavy loads of disquiet and cannot be diminished because others might seem them as negligible. Peter H. Reynolds makes us feel the weight of those burdens in the child's face and body language and, most clearly, in the palette of the art. From the grey blues and purples of the child's troubled steps, through the times of lighter oranges and pinks, until his world is bright and sunny yellow, this child feels everything, and so do we. 

Peter H. Reynolds's books are always a treat of messaging and graphics, and his collaboration with Marc Colagiovanni reminds us again that we have the capacity to make things better for ourselves while inspiring all of us to do our best.

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When Things Aren’t Going Right, Go Left by Marc Colagiovanni and Peter H. Reynolds | BOOK TRAILER

Uploaded by Scholastic to YouTube on February 222, 2023.