Shape-Shifting! My Shape Is Sam by Amanda Jackson

Sam had four even sides. Four pointy corners.

He lived in a place where everyone had a job, depending on their shape.

But Sam has a yen to be like the Circles. They were smooth. They kept things rolling and turning.

To Sam, squares were dull, just building blocks for buildings and bridges. They weren't going anywhere.

BOR-ING!

But turning his square corners into curves was a problem. Sam tried wedging himself inside of a hoop, and bumped up to the top of a hill.

He tipped and tottered

and...rolled

Sam was on a ROLL! On the fast track! Even when his hoop hit a big stone and bumped him out, he kept on going. It's a rough ride to the bottom but in the process, Sam rubbed off his pointy corners.

"That was amazing!" cheered a square.

And without those sharp corners to define him, Sam is a very versatile shape. He's shaped his own identity and there are many new things Sam can now do, in Amanda Jackson's My Shape is Sam (Page Street Kids, 2019), illustrated in joyful geometrical form by Lydia Nichols. Said American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be." And now our little square can define himself simply as SAM! In this forthcoming picture book young readers can get a review of the concept of squares and a little lesson that states that sometimes you can put a square peg into a round hole after all.