Achild struggles with the worry and anxiety that come with an unexpected problem.

In a wonderful balance of text and pictures, the team responsible for What Do You Do With an Idea (2014) returns with another book inspiring children to feel good about themselves. A child frets about a problem that won’t go away: “I wished it would just disappear. I tried everything I could to hide from it. I even found ways to disguise myself. But it still found me.” The spare, direct narrative is accompanied by soft gray illustrations in pencil and watercolor. The sepia-toned figure of the child is set apart from the background and surrounded by lots of white space, visually isolating the problem, which is depicted as a purple storm cloud looming overhead. Color is added bit by bit as the storm cloud grows and its color becomes more saturated. With a backpack and umbrella, the child tries to escape the problem while the storm swirls, awash with compass points scattered across the pages. The pages brighten into splashes of yellow as the child decides to tackle the problem head-on and finds that it holds promise for unlooked-for opportunity.

A straightforward, effective approach to helping children cope with one of life’s commonplace yet emotionally fraught situations, this belongs on the shelf alongside Molly Bang’s Sophie books. (Picture book. 4-7)

-Kirkus Review

My coworker left this book on my desk for me to read today, and it was perfect. I have felt like the whole world has been laying on my shoulders this week, and this book brightened my day. I will definitely buy this book for my kids one day. ( )

In this book it talks about the difficulties having a problem might be. We see that the schachter is afraid to solve the problem he has. In the end he faces his issue and figure out that it wasn't so bad to face is problem. ( )

Does this PROBLEM sound familiar?
These magical illustrations and the oh so familiar tale, touch my heart. ( )

Title: What Do You Do With A Problem?
- Author: Kobi Yamada
- Illustrator: Mae Besom
- Publisher: Compendium, Inc.
- Date: May 24, 2016
- Pages: 40
- Type of Book/Genre: Picture Book, Realistic Fiction
- Short Summary of the Plot: The story begins with a little boy who has a problem that he doesn’t like, and doesn’t know how it happened. The little boy tried ignoring it, worried that the problem would consume him, wondered if it will sneak up like a monster and get him, worried that it would steal his belongings, and the more he worried the bigger the problem grew. The little boy could not escape from the problem no matter what he tried, it was still there. He was thinking about the problem all the time, and he did not feel good. He finally decided that all this needs to be put to an end, and that he was probably making it worse than it actually was. He began to prepare himself to face his problem, and he realized that it was not all that he made it out to be, that there was something beautiful within it. The problem contained an opportunity to grow, and be brave. When he has a problem now, he does not fear it, because he knows that every problem has an opportunity of something beautiful with it.
- Tags/Subject headings that describe the content: problems, worrying, facing the challenge, growth, opportunity.
- My Response: I love this book, and want to have it in my classroom to teach my students that we can learn and grow from our problems, and that it is best not to avoid them.