I was looking for a gift to add to a care package I wanted to send to a special girl I know. I ventured over to Barnes and Nobles children’s section to see what I could find. I always gift books to people but I wanted this book to be a little different. Not like the Brother’s Grimm fairy tales or anything Disney. But a story where the characters resemble the people around her including herself.
Slightly disheartened, I started to leave until I saw a book with a beautiful girl on the cover. She actually resembled the child I was sending the book to. Something Beautiful by Sharon Dennis Wyeth and illustrated by Chris K. Soentpiet is a story about a young girl who decides one day to seek out the beauty in her neighborhood.
I thought about my neighborhood and what I hate about it. But then I thought about the things that make my hood beautiful like summer days when you come home and all the guys are on the block cracking jokes and reminiscing about what they did when they were young childs running wild. Even blackouts were fun because if you got caught on the wrong block, you were getting water bombed. Successfully dodging eggs on Halloween is always a beautiful thing!
The hood can be a cold, angry and scary place…but if you look closely, you can find the beauty in it. 🙂
