I GOT IT! by David Weisner

When I was a kid, we had softball during PE. On warm sunny days, we'd play out at our school baseball field -- hot, expansive, and flat. I remember not having much fun playing this game because I wasn't very good at it at all. (If I'd tried and practiced, I might have liked it!) I was always the last one picked for a team and somehow I always got chosen to play outfield - which for me was a scary, scary position to play --especially when you cannot catch a ball (or hit one for that matter). I did not want to be the one to ruin the game for anyone. I felt a lot of pressure!

So with these memories in my heart, I could immediately connect with the concept of David Wiesner's latest book, I Got It! (Clarion Books, 2018). (Available now!)

This wordless picture book begins with a boy looking in, standing outside a fence as a game is about to start. He has a mitt in his hand, and he is ready. He takes a chance and goes on the field, asking if he can play. Of course, (like me), he doesn't catch the ball the first time, even though he has boldly proclaimed "I got it!"

In the rest of the story, we see the boy try and try again, this time with birds flying alongside him. As  he takes on the challenge of catching this ball, we see all types of fantastical things, such as gnarled trees sprouting up out of the ground to block his path, his teammates growing into giants, and the boy trying to leap over them. Wiesner uses scale in a double page spread of a towering, massive baseball spanning across the gutter -- all to emphasize how big and uncatchable that ball seems. (See previous page for the shadow that predicts its arrival.)

Wiesner draws out the boy's run towards his second catch -- appropriately. When you are running to catch that ball and trying to get in good position to get it, time stands still! ( I can attest to that!)

He tries again, but it is a few pages before we see if he is successful. Wiesner narrates the trek to the ball with pictures -- all showing the joy and teamwork that will lead our main character to his quest at the end.

Wiesner fills the pages with the players themselves -- I think -- to show that this type of moment is so enveloping to a child that it seems like the whole world to them at the time. The boy becomes smaller and smaller (because when you feel like something is impossible you do feel small), and his fellow players join in (showing that every one of those kids could sympathize with the boy -- they had all been in that place before, trying to catch the ball and save the game.  Desperately wanting to catch it.

At the end, they are all together against the same fence, this time on the opposite side. With this, the boy has come full circle.

I thought of growth mindset when I read this book.
I thought of overcoming challenges.
I thought of how it feels to be on the outside looking in.
I thought of courage and what it takes to try something you know is very hard to do.

I will be coming back to this book, again and again, like we do with all of David Wiesner's picture books. How many times have YOU reread Flotsam, Art & Max, or The Three Pigs? Countless times I'm sure. How many times have you walked over to the David Wiesner section of your library? The path to mine is well-worn.

I listened to David Wiesner tell us about this book at dinner at TLA 2017.  To see it and read it now is culmination of a book memory! With more to be made as it is shared!