OOPS, I DROPPED THE LEMON TART

Lucy was once a happy and cheerful girl, but shortly after she started school, she often found herself worrying…a lot.

Lucy’s new withdrawn behavior concerns her grandmother. Lucy and Nonna talk to her teacher, who assures Lucy that everyone makes mistakes. Later, Nonna recommends that Lucy help her father, a chef, in the kitchen. With best friend Evan’s help, Lucy becomes quite a good helper. When a food critic comes to her father’s restaurant and a nervous Lucy drops his lemon tart, her father and Evan marvel at the artistic beauty of the broken tart on the miraculously intact plate. (The critic judges it “highly original.”) The illustrations are charming and particularly creative in an early spread in which the children go from standing beside a swimming pool to a page two-thirds the normal size on which Lucy stands, uninterested and apart from the other children, who swim and dive into the pool. Puzzlingly, this clever design does not carry on throughout. Perhaps it’s the translation from the Dutch, but this section reads awkwardly. When the instructor asks, “Who wants to jump off the diving board?” the students cheer, “Yippee!” It’s an odd response and one that children will likely point out. A concluding poem from Nonna to Lucy about making mistakes feels unnecessary. Lucy, Nonna, and Lucy’s father present White; Evan is a child of color.

Though wonky in places, this book makes important points about mitigating anxiety in young children.