Jabari Jumps (2020)

Jabari is at the swimming pool and in line to dive off of the diving board. He lets people go ahead of him as he is ‘contemplating his dive’ and decides that maybe he should rest first, or maybe even dive another day. He comes up with many reasons to postpone jumping off the diving board, but eventually, he is next. His father notices that he is procrastinating because he is nervous, so he gives the option to come back another day, validates Jabari’s reasons, and tries to encourage him gently. Jabari ultimately does jump, and finds that he has much more courage than he originally anticipated. In fact Jabari is brave because he overcame his fear, and made the jump. He finds confidence, and can not wait, to try out a new and amazing dive for next time.
Relevance: When Jabari finally works up the courage to overcome his fear, he discovers his confidence, and a new found trust in his ability to overcome obstacles. Anxiety is a killer of confidence, it can cause us to procrastinate, just like Jabari, but when we take that step forward, or take that leap of faith, we find the hope, and which leads us to the solution. This book also gives us a good example of how to manage stress and anxiety in our young ones through Jabari’s father’s examples. ( )

This is the story of Jabari, a boy that went with his father and baby sister to the pool. He told his father that he would like to try jumping from the diving board, but when the time arrived he started to feel unsecured of jumping so he came up with some excuses that saved him from jumping. However, the next day was a new start for Jabari because he would try jumping from the diving board again. With a wise advice from his father, Jabari was able to confront his fear of jumping from the diving board, and surprisingly he loved it so much that he would do it again. I think that this is a great book as it shows a black child confronting his fears with his father's help. I would recommend this book to my students because they can learn that once they try new things and get out of the comfort zone they can have more experiences that could be a great step for personal growth. ( )

Jabari, a young African American boy, goes to a public pool with his father and sister. Having passed his swim test, he will be allowed to jump off the diving board, and he is very excited at first. When faced with the actual diving board itself, Jabari needs to psych himself up and get a pep talk from his father to gather the courage to finally dive off the board. A nice story with African American characters about facing your fears and overcoming them. ( )

Jabari Jumps is a nice little story about how a little boy, Jabari, wants to go off the diving board but he gets nervous. So his father tells him it is like a surprise and Jabari loves surprises. With this encouragement, Jabari jumps off the diving board. This story shows children that if something seems scary, look at is as if its a surprise. ( )

Jabari Jumps is a very sweet, short children’s book following little Jabari as he tries to work up the courage to jump off the diving board. The book shows children that everyone gets scared sometimes and that it is normal and okay. It also shows them how Jabari’s dad helps him to overcome his fears.The pages are filled with exquisite illustrations that really capture how Jabari is feeling. I also love how there are images in the background that are made out of what looks like pages out of a book. The illustrations also clearly show what is happening in the story and a non-reader would be able to make out the story from these alone. ( )