Something Beautiful

Something Beautiful tells of a little girl's journey to find something beautiful in her inner city community after learning the word "beautiful" in school. She asks others about their something beautiful to get an idea of what hers might be. The child in the story is African American. Her community

Show More

shows her living in an inner city area with depression and need for attention.

I enjoyed this story because it takes a simple word from a classroom lesson and makes a little girl apply it to her everyday life. The book encourages making a difference not matter how small or young you might be.

In the classroom, I would use the book to introduce that we can do anything to help better our community from sweeping up broken glass to ridding our walls of graffiti.

Show Less

Sharon Dennis Wyeth's Something Beautiful is a story of a young girl who is in search of something beautiful, as the title suggests. Discouraged by the graffiti and trash covering the city streets, the girl asks everyone she meets what they find to be beautiful. Her friends share their love for

Show More

their jump ropes and their beads. Aunt Carolyn points out baby Carl's laugh, and the girl's mother tells the girl that she is her mother's something beautiful! In order to ensure that everyone has this experience, the girl cleans up her street and scrubs the graffiti off of her door. She even makes a plan to plant some flowers in the courtyard.

Chris K. Soentpiet's illustrations effectively tell the story. His paintings provide realistic pictures, allowing the reader to picture the young girl, on whom the story focuses, and the community in which she lives.

I originally decided to read Something Beautiful because it was listed in a number of resources as being a picture book that could be used in the secondary classroom. While I think the message that Something Beautiful communicates can promote discussion among students of all ages, the true-to-life illustrations seem to limit the use of this piece. Because the story focuses on the experience of such a young girl, I think that Something Beautiful would best be used in grades 2-5. Teachers, wishing to use this picture book in their classrooms, might encourage students to share what they find beautiful. In fact, this topic might even serve as a writing prompt. Just as the young girl makes a choice to clean up her neighborhood, students might engage in a service-learning project, in an effort to make a part of their community beautiful for those who live there.

Show Less

I enjoyed this book for many reasons. The overall message of this story is extremely important and would be a valuable book to read in the classroom. The message of this story is responsibility and the taking charge in your life. I loved the overall plot of the story and how the little girl

Show More

searches around her neighborhood for something beautiful. Eventually she realizes there is beauty in everything, and decides to clean and fix her neighborhood to make it even more beautiful. This idea of taking responsibility is something that could greatly benefit students, who may be in a similar situation. The writing is well paced, and has some repetition making it a good book for kids to read aloud. The illustrations do a great job of enhancing the story and are crucial to the story line, because the little girls neighborhood is illustrated as a dirty and lower income city neighborhood. This pushes readers to consider other perspectives and how other people might live. This would be a good book to read to students in every area including rural, suburban, and even urban. The urban students may be able to relate to the story, while the suburban and rural students will be able to learn something new.

Show Less

This book would be appropriate for all ages. This book can be used to help teach diversity in the schools. It shows the different lifestyles that children live and the different places children grow up. It will also relate to children who come from a poor home life.

A young girl wants to see beyond all the scary sights of the sidewalks and scribling is the halls of her school. One day her teacher rights on the board the word "beautiful." From here on out the girl challenges herself to see all the beautiful in her neighboor hood and school. Everything she sees,

Show More

she finds the beauty in. This book portrays such a wonderful lesson; if you look for beauty you can find it, it is everywhere. The little girl says in the books "something that when you have it, your heart is happy" ; I could agree more with the quote.

Show Less

"Something Beautiful" is a wonderful story of a little girl who is living a life of hardship and is forced to grow up much earlier than any little child should. She sets out to find her "something beautiful" in a world filled with despair and destruction.

Retelling: In this story a little girl notices some not-so-beautiful things about her home and goes on a quest for beautiful things. She finds many.

Thoughts and Feelings: I too have many things that cheer me up when I feel blue: My friends and family, juggling, and fresh vegetables, to name a few.

Show More

This book made me want to decorate.

Show Less

This is a story about a young African American girl who lives in a very bad inner-city neighborhood. She looks out of the window in her home and sees brick walls, broken glass, and trash all over the place. On the front step she notices someone painted, "DIE" in red paint across her door. She was

Show More

determined and in search of finding something beautiful in everyone elses' lives who she encountered. She didn't know exactly what beautiful meant, but she thought it was something that makes you happy. She looked all over town encountering kids who were happy about their jump rope, beads, and new shoes. She met a woman who was happy about her fried fish sandwiches. The girl went home discovering a garden in a courtyard along the way. She scrubbed off the red letters painted on her door, then picked up all of the trash in the courtyard. She pictured a beautiful garden there someday. Her mother then told her she was beautiful.

Show Less

I think Something Beautiful was excellent because of Chris Soenpiet's illustrations. I think they were wonderful, marvelous, and interesting. My favorite part was when the little girl found out she was something beautiful. I give this book 5 stars because of the way Chris drew the pictures. I

Show More

recommend this book to kids of all ages. He made me feel like I was right in the little girl's neighborhood.

Show Less

This story is about poverty,which many of our public school system children lives in today. The little girl is trying to make a negative into a positive. This is a good book to share because it lets students know no matter what type of situation you are faced with something positive can come from

Show More

it.

Show Less

This is for older children because of the message that is conveyed in the story. It is based on a little girl who lives in the inner city and they do not have much. Her mother always tells her to look for something beautiful and one day she comes to discover that it was not something that could be

Show More

seen, but it was in her.

Show Less

Great book that helps to illustrate the ideas that are processed through children's minds.

I think this is a very powerful story. “Something Beautiful” is a realistic fiction picture book for readers in the 1st-3rd grade. I really liked this story because of the powerful message behind it, the beautiful illustrations, and the story line that could be relatable to so many students.

Show More

This story depicts a girl living in a poor neighborhood, where crime and poverty are present. For example, outside her window is broken glass and her front door is spray painted with the word, “die”. She sees a homeless lady that lives on her street, and dangerous dark streets she tries to avoid. I have not seen many books that accurately depict some of the neighborhoods some of the students in a classroom might live in and the danger they sometimes are exposed to. Especially when teaching in Baltimore where there is a high amount of poverty, there is definitely a chance where the students may very well relate to this character’s living situation. It is not happy or pleasant, but it is some people’s reality. What I loved about this book is that it does talk about the bad, but it also has a great central message of finding the good in the bad, or the beautiful in the ugly. The beautiful painted illustrations, the urban perspective, and the positive central message, I think this is a great read for young readers.

Show Less

She lives in the projects and with her mom and all she sees is graffiti on the walls with bad things written. At school she learns that things can be beautiful no matter what. But when she gets home she sees the outside of her house and she says one day when she is older she will be able to live

Show More

somewhere else and have a beautiful garden outside of her door. She asks her mom "do you have something beautiful?" and her mom replies, "yes I have you"....

Show Less

"Something Beautiful" is about a young girl in an urban area that feels like she has nothing beautiful in her life. I found the illustrations played a large role in this story. In the illustrations, the reader can see the trash surrounding her neighborhood, "die" written on her old wooden door, and

Show More

the sad look on her face as she steps outside. All of this helps the reader capture the run down and dirty neighborhood and understand why this young girl can't find beauty in any of it. Also, I thought the story touched on tough issues like living in poverty and urban communities. It allows readers who have experienced this to connect deeply to the young girl's feelings, yet opens the readers eyes to what is beautiful even in this life. For example, the children around her find beauty in a jump rope, Mr. Lee finds beauty in his fruit store, and her mom finds beauty in her. The big idea is expressed as this young girl begins to find beauty around her and within her. Overall, the big idea is finding beauty in yourself and your life. Also, the young girl demonstrates hope as she washes "die" off her door and plans to plant flowers in her yard.

Show Less

This is a mulitculuturalism book. About a little african american girl raised in a "ghetto-like" area. She learns about the word "beautiful," and is on a mission to "find something beautiful." Asks people in her town if they have something beautiful. Each person she asks has something little they

Show More

find beautiful. Demonstrates appreciation for small things. She asks her mom what her "something beautiful" is and it's the little girl.

Show Less

Summary: The story of a young African American girl who grows up in a neighborhood of poverty. One day she hears the word "beautiful" and is determined to find the meaning of the word beautiful by finding something beautiful. She asks her friends and neighbors what they think is beautiful and they

Show More

show her a variety of items they find beautiful. At the end of the book, the girl asks her mother what she thinks is beautiful and the mother replies she thinks her daughter is beautiful.

Personal reflection: I liked this book because it shows the character traits of persistence and being hard working. I think this is an important concept book for young students to read because it shows the word beautiful through varied perspectives. I liked the message in this book.

Class use: Text set on poverty, text set on prospective, I think this book could also be used to introduce poetry and diverse communities.

Show Less

Ugliness surrounds a little girl in her inner-city neighborhood so she sets out to find beauty by asking freinds and family what is beautiful.

This picture book is very moving and inspirational for children between the ages of 5-7. It presents the ability of human beings to find something beautiful even in less ideal circumstances. This book will help children understand how to overcome adversity in order to reach a certain level of

Show More

happiness. This is a nonfiction story.

Show Less

A little girl longs to see beyond the scary sights on the sidewalk and the angry scribbling in the halls of her building. When her teacher writes the word beautiful on the blackboard, the girl decides to look for something beautiful in her neighborhood. Her neighbors tell her about their own

Show More

beautiful things. Her search for “something beautiful” leaves her feeling much happier. She has experienced the beauty of friendship and the power of hope.

Show Less