A Place of Her Own: Almond by Allen Say

Almond is taken with the unusual New Girl in her class.

The new girl could play "The Flight of the Bumblebee" on her violin so fast that Almond couldn't see the bee. But she could hear it fly from flower to flower, fast, fast, fast.

Almon listens to the New Girl practicing from her window, and asks her mother how she does it.

"She's talented," her mother said.

Almond worries about whether she has a talent.

"You will find your talent," her mother says.

At school one day, her teacher tells the class that they will perform in a play. She tells Almond that because she has beautiful hair, she will play the part of Rapunzel.

"I can't!" Almond thought. "I have no talent," she said.

"You'll be wonderful," said her teacher.

"You are a good pretender," said the New Girl.

And Almond remembers imagining the bumblebee in the girl's music and imagining flying with the crows twirling and circling through the rain, and she sees that she does have the ability to pretend, to see and be many things in her imagination. It is what actors do. That is her talent.

The celebrated author-illustrator Allen Say has written a sweet story about finding your talent in his latest, Almond (Scholastic Press, 2020), illuminated in his lovely illustrations of the two talented girls. Say portrays the faces of his characters with great skill and delicacy, making them memorable, as he did in his two quiet and sensitive Caldecott-winning books, The Boy of the Three-Year Nap and Grandfather's Journey.