The Day You Begin, written by Jacqueline Woodson and illustrated by Rafael López, is an all-around beautiful book. Woodson’s lyrical text conveys the anxiety young students experience when they feel different from their peers. The overall tone is perfectly expressed in the opening line. There will be times when you walk into a room and no one there is quite like you. Children feel isolated because of their physical features, their ethnic lunches, their foreign names, their capabilities.

Three-fourths of the way through, the text shifts gradually with a subtle addition to the opening line. There will be times when you walk into a room and no one there is quite like you until the day you begin to share your stories. The children learn to be true to themselves in order to make connections with their classmates. In the end, we find that maybe we are not very different from each other after all.

The illustrations burst with color and life. López creates an inner dream world superimposed on on the real one. While the children’s facial expressions show uncertainty and loneliness, we also get a glimpse of the exuberant spirit that is just waiting to pour out.

The Day You Begin would be a wonderful read-aloud choice for building empathy. I highly recommend this book for readers of all ages, particularly ages 6-10.