Yellow Bird and Me

"Don't judge a book by its cover" is a theme reinvented in this tale of a boy with dyslexia and the girl who becomes his advocate.

by Karen Sunderhaft

by Joyce Hansen
Clarion Books, $6.95; for ages 9–12
Purchase Yellow Bird and Me

“Don’t judge a book by its cover” is hardly a new theme, but in a story about a child with dyslexia, it’s an important one.

Doris doesn’t like Yellow Bird, but when she signs on to tutor him and help him learn his lines for the school play, she becomes his friend — and later his advocate. Ultimately, she helps Yellow Bird’s teachers realize that he has dyslexia. And when he lands the lead role in the play, Doris and other classmates start to see him as the unique, talented person he is.