The Power of Yeti
by Rebecca Van Slyke; illus. by G. Brian Karas
Primary    Paulsen/Penguin    32 pp.
9/23    9780399169588    $18.99
e-book ed.  9780593407691    $10.99

When a rosy-cheeked “small-footed human” visits the park, he spies a gaggle of friends showing off their playground skills—they are sports stars, reading machines, and even adept backwards-counters. Small-footed human, however, is more…human. Running to keep up with the pack, he trips over his shoelaces, forgets how to re-tie them, and totally loses his cool. His verbal frustrations summon an unlikely support team to his side: a Yeti and his close relations Sasquatch, Bigfoot, and the Abominable Snow Monster, all ready to help the protagonist back onto his feet with some friendly growth-mindset wisdom. With loosely drawn limbs and toothy grins, the fuzzy quartet bounds around the park demonstrating the punnily identified “Power of Yeti”—as in, when asked to high-five a Sasquatch, remind yourself that you’re “not tall enough…YETi!” The ambling cryptids assure their small-footed friend that their own skills—in everything from basketball to ballet—developed with time, practice, and persistence. Van Slyke’s bubbly narrative and Karas’s ever-smiling figures paint the acquisition of social-emotional skills in a perhaps-too-rosy glow, but the straightforward presentation makes for a practicable introduction that will make even the biggest and hairiest challenges seem more approachable.

From the September/October 2023 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.