Age: Kindergarten-3rd grade

Honest, heart wrenching, and uplifting, a boy talks about life with a stutter from the feel of the words stuck on his lips to the embarrassment of being called on in class. But when his dad takes him somewhere quiet and full of the natural world, the boy connects with the sound and movement of the river.

With such few words, Scott presents tangible ways to describe what a stutter feels like: a pine tree’s roots tangling inside my mouth, a crow stuck in the back of my throat, a bubbling, churning, crashing river. The muted and blended watercolor artwork adds even more emotion to the story.

Addresses both the audience of someone looking into the life of a stutterer and a child that is living this life. An essential read for both audiences.

I really love this book! A young boy who struggles with dealing with his stutter finds solace in the words of his father one afternoon as they visit his favorite place, the river. After a particularly bad speech day, the boy and his father spend some quiet time at the river, broken only by the father telling his son that he just talks like the river. The boy keeps this with him from then on, helping him to understand his stutter in a new light. Based on a true story, I thought this was a wonderful way for the dad help the son in feeling like he still belongs and to be able to relate to something in his surroundings that he really cares about. The illustrations are very fitting and beautiful, as the splashy watercolors remind you of the movements of the river.

Beautiful book about the frustration of stuttering with a simple empowering mantra that kids can take away after reading. Maybe have a moment of quiet with a river audio sample playing in the background.

Beautiful illustrations: a great library find for B & I

A boy wakes up each day with words trapped in his mouth and throat and doesn't know how to get them out. During a particularly hard day, his dad picks him up from school and takes him to the river. They relax and have fun and eventually the dad talks to the boy about how his speech is like the river, bubbling and churning at times, and smooth at other times.

This is a unique approach to a book about stuttering and would jump start many conversations. The illustrations do a nice job of complementing the water / river theme.

Gorgeous illustrations and heart-felt words combine to make an extraordinary book about speaking and owning your own voice. I highly recommend for EVERYONE, but especially for those families that include a person who stutters.

The audiobook!!!!! If you’re going to read this, I cannot recommend the audiobook version enough!!!

Such a beautiful and important book.

All three of my sons had speech issues; each one was different. One suffered with word retrieval, the other with delay, and the final with stuttering. It was so bad, in fact, that he postured. To say it broke my heart was an understatement. Thankfully, he received excellent early intervention, and was ultimately exited from speech in his later elementary school years, but it does rear its head when he is overly tired or anxious. All that to say that we haven’t had books that talk about issues like stuttering-until now. I’m so thankful kids can see themselves in books, and others can grow empathy if they have no personal connection. More of this, please and thank you.