It’s Okay to Be Different

I love all of Todd Parr’s books. But It’s Okay to Be Different holds a special place in my heart.

My daughter (like all children) has special needs and one of her special needs was help with self-esteem. I find myself occasionally assessing her feelings of self-worth like you would check to see if there is enough gasoline in the car. I do this type of periodic assessment with her attachment too. And if there is an issue, we work together to fill her tank with cuddles or affirmations or role-playing.

Back to the book… I found it when I was looking for self-affirmation books to help with her self-esteem when she was in kindergarten. But I was also looking for a book that Natasha would enjoy reading with me. Starting in kindergarten it became very clear that reading was going to be a struggle for her. Eventually she did receive a diagnose of dyslexia which made all the difference in the world. She is under an IEP and gets the extra help she needs in school.

The book is very colorful with simple drawings that take up a page. It is very friendly for boys or girls. And there is only one sentence per page.

My daughter had just lost a tooth when I found this book. I loved the first page. It is has a simple picture of a face with missing teeth. The page states:

It’s okay to be missing a tooth (or two or three)

I really like the mad page. It is solid red. There is a simple drawing (black outlined) of a skunk. The page states:

It’s okay to get mad

The differences that he covers… It is ok to be physically different, a different race, be handicapped, have anger, talk about feelings, be silly, be adopted, do good things, make mistakes.

My daughter and I have read this book together for the last 3 years. Neither of us every tire of the book….. It always leads to interesting conversations. And there have been a few interesting experiments.

One page said that it was ok to eat macaroni in the bathtub. So my darling daughter took a bath while eating macaroni and cheese. There was macaroni floating everywhere. We both decided that eating in the bathtub just didn’t work out well. And now we when read the macaroni page we giggle together.

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