I Walk with Vanessa: A Story About a Simple Act of Kindness

When a young girl sees the new child at school being bullied, she is disturbed, and not sure what to do. Thinking it over at home, she is struck with an idea, and the next morning she shows up at Vanessa's door, determined to give her some company on her walk to school. The other children in her social group join in, and soon their number is swelled by other pupils as well, until almost everyone but the bully is walking with Vanessa...

A wordless picture-book that works beautifully as an exploration of bullying and how to respond to it, I Walk with Vanessa: A Story about a Simple Act of Kindness is the first title I have read from author/illustrator Kerascoët, a pseudonym for husband and wife team Sébastien Cosset and Marie Pommepuy. show more The story itself is sweet, and the artwork appealing. There were scenes that reminded me very strongly of the work of Australian picture-book creator Bob Graham, which is high praise in my book. Recommended to anyone looking for new children's stories addressing the themes of bullying, kindness and inclusion, as well as to anyone who enjoys wordless picture-books. show less

A sweet book with a very important and always relevant message. The only reason I didn't give it the full five stars is beause I would have liked to see the bully get some sort of comeuppance. I realize that the overall message was about reaching out to others and showing compassion when they need it most. But it still would have been nice to see him be dealt with, if only to prevent him from bothering anyone else.

I love this wordless picture book because it is easy to follow and has a powerful message. Throughout the book, you can easily identify how each character is feeling and how their feelings change as you turn the pages. You see the characters deciding to act upon something throughout the book as well. This book highlights how a simple act of kindness can lead to an entire community to befriend a person who has been bullied. It is extremely important that we teach our students kindness.

This is a great wordless picture book because it shows how a small act of kindness can change someone's life. The characters in this story appear fun and relatable for young readers. The cartoon-style illustrations help readers to gather context, including colors that represent feelings or facial expressions that demonstrate character's emotions. Even young children understand concepts like bullying, but seeing friendship and kindness triumph is important and encouraging. I think that this book has great potential for both parents and children, as well as for teachers and students to discuss concepts like bullying and kindness.

This was a wordless picture book, but even without the words it evoked a powerful message for young readers. Kerascoët does a great job of telling the story through illustrations. The illustrations are easy to follow along with and set the mood for the entire story. You feel Vanessa's pain when she is cast as an outcast by her peers. You also feel the joy and relief when one of Vanessa's peer asks to walk to school with her. The story progresses smoothly. The events follow in a chronological order. The message that students can take away is that it only takes one small act of kindness to make a difference. Vanessa was being bullied. It took one peer to step in and make a change.

I felt that this wordless picture book had a great underlying message, but didn't do a great job at creating a simple, engaging story. I feel that wordless picture books are for children who are not able to read/comprehend text yet, and this book was a little too lengthy and not as visually engaging as it could have been. Often times, a page would be filled with drawings representing small details that were often difficult to determine what exactly the character was doing. Although this leads the reader to infer more in-depth, it also creates confusion, as there are no words to describe exactly what the character was thinking/doing at that point of the story. However, I did enjoy the message that this book portrays, which is kindness. show more It can be interpreted by examining the images in this book, that there was a new girl in school (Vanessa) who did not appear to have any friends. One day after school, Vanessa got bullied/screamed at by a boy in her class and a girl that witnessed it happening, saw how upset that it made her. The following day, the girl walked with Vanessa to school and invited everyone else in the school to join them on their walk. By doing this, Vanessa appeared to be making friends with everyone in the school, except for the bully. It is noticeable by the facial expressions drawn in the illustrations that the bully was not happy about Vanessa having a lot of friends, because he was not able to join her after being mean to her the day prior. This book would be good to read to younger students who cannot read text yet but need to be reinforced about what kindness is/looks like. The only problem would be that the children will not have a long enough attention span to stay focused for the entire story with illustrations that all look fairly similar and are not particularly colorful. show less

"I Walk with Vanessa" is a simple, but meaningful wordless book. It is about a girl who is new to a school and is initially isolated. This makes her an easy target for a bully, but thanks to the support of one classmate, it creates a butterfly effect and suddenly all of her classmates become welcoming and nice towards her. By the end of the story, Vanessa's behavior evolved and she is finally happy and comfortable with her new school because she no longer felt alone. Since this book does not contain words, children can observe and analyze the plot through the details in the drawings such as the characters' facial expressions and their actions. I would recommend this book because it easily allows for different interpretations of why the show more characters do certain actions, how their actions affect one another, and how do they internally feel throughout the book. This is a relatable story where the reader can see themselves as the characters and empathize with them. show less