The Magical Yet

PreS-Gr 1–A child with brown skin and curly brown hair stands sadly in the rain next to a bike with a crumpled front wheel, then picks up the bike and starts riding. On the way, the child discovers a small glowing orb that blooms into an adorable flowery creature, the titular Magical Yet! The text explains that everyone has a Yet, a helpful reminder to keep striving, whatever their goal may be. With the Yet’s encouragement, the young child repairs the bike and tries the hill again, this time riding triumphantly off into the sunset. DiTerlizzi’s rhyming text flows crisply across each page, and the creative wordplay employs parentheses, colons, and ellipses to help create a dramatic and musical reading. Bright, geometric, illustrations with a warm and rich color palette show an incredibly diverse set of young enthusiasts painting, playing, and creating in all sorts of media. Special attention is given to a young male dancer, who is then shown as an adult soaring gracefully across the page. Thoughtful details abound, such as on the final pages where we see the main character, now grown, surrounded by pictures of bike journeys taken in far-off lands, bike blueprints, designs, and awards.