THE YES

Author: Sarah Bee
Illustrator: Satoshi Kitamura
Buy – The Yes

The power of yes..

A strange, yet encouraging story which personifies yes and no into characters which play out the drama of self confidence and doubt. Negative mind chatter or nay-sayers can be overcome with one simple word…YES!

The NO’s are pictured as a swam of little black marks and shapes, which follow the big and hefty, orange YES across a landscape of natural obstructions.

Each time he comes to an obstacle he stops and looks. The NO’s buzz their doubts.

” No, you couldn’t. It’s too rickety. No, you shouldn’t. It’s too trickety. You will break it. You won’t make it. NO!”

The Yes looked…YES!

Little ones will love joining the joyful, free spirited creature saying, YES!

Through the use of simple bright shapes and colour, illustrator Satoshi Kitamura makes it easy for children to see the book’s message.

The illustrations are crafted in bold, blockish watercolours. The characters remain featureless, perhaps to keep them as concepts rather than personalities.

Children are offered the idea that, you may create obstacles in your mind to stop you from doing certain things, but most of the time the worries are not real.

The story may take a couple of reads to get a flow going, putting emphasis in the right places.

“They were so many and so very that you could see nothing but No’s. They made all the Else a no-ness and a not-ness.”

The Yes is not as easy to read as some children’s stories, yet it delivers a rewarding message.

It’s only a problem if you make it one.
Commit to positivity. Be resolute and joyful in your choices.
Yes I can!

Younger children will enjoy the simple story, NO versus YES.
With slightly older children it is important for parents to understand the concepts behind the words, giving them the opportunity to open a conversation about internal dialog. It’s about saying YES even when there are potential NO’s. This is not a story about being disobedient.

Using …all his goodness and bigness and yesness he leaves them behind, romping away over the distant hilltop, a drop of fire on the soft green skyline.

Buy – The Yes