PUBLICATION DATE: March 6, 2012

abby’s Stick-to-It Day by Sheila Walsh, illustrated by Natasha Kuricheva is “a story about never giving up”. Gabby, one of God’s little angels, is sent to watch over Sophie. Sophie is a good girl, but has a hard time finishing things. In this story, Sophie starts washing her dog, but doesn’t want to finish the job. Then she is asked to watch her brother, but doesn’t want to after it gets messy. So Gabby whispers Galatians 6:9 in her ear, reminding her not to give up. In the end, Sophie reads her brother a book, and finishes the whole story. Gabby is very proud of her.

I cannot say enough about the illustrations in this book. The children were so adorable, the colors were bright, soft, subtle and crisp all at the same time. If I were granted a wish and could suddenly be an illustrator, I’d want to draw and paint like Natasha Kuricheva in this book. Multi-racial angels were a plus, too.

I also enjoyed the different fonts and colors that the words were written in to emphasize certain main points. When a young reader is trying hard to focus on the words, they sometimes miss the meaning. If your child has reading comprehension issues, I recommend this book for that very reason. It’s hard to miss the main point when it’s bold, six points bigger, a different color, and slanted.

I know I’m going to sound like a snob when I say this, because, let’s face it we all mess up our punctuation every now and then. However, I counted three minor offenses. Like I said, minor, but it was my con in the book, so I have to mention it. My other down point is that Sophie talks like a child valley girl. Cute, but I’d like to think that angels have it together a little more than the average six-year-old. You may think it’s adorable and just roll with it. I found it a hindrance. However, I’m fairly certain that one of my guardian angels is a seven-foot tall hulk named Harold, so I had a difficult time seeing an angel in such a scattered way. To each her own.