Change & Resilience

Change & Resilience is part of Crabtree’s “Our Values” series. This series is an eclectic mix of topics which claims to help students “appreciate the diversity of cultures and faiths of the people around them, [so] they will discover what it means to be part of a society”.

Change & Resilience follows the traditional nonfiction format with a table of contents, glossary, and index. Unfortunately, the organization of the information seems disjointed, more like a loose collection of information about change and resilience than a coherent investigation of the two topics and how they are connected. Chapter topics switch from change to resilience to change and back to resilience.

Change & Resilience is inconsistent in its ability to present information about change and resilience. Some chapters are very good. “A Resilience Case Study” tells the story of 17-year-old Yusra Mardini who fled Syria on a boat. When the boat was in danger of capsizing on the Mediterranean Sea, Yusra helped tow the boat for three and a half hours to safety. This two-page story is an excellent example of resilience.

Another chapter, “Resilience, Self-Esteem, and Media”, is also well-done.

Being resilient helps us to not let the media affect our self-esteem in a negative way. It means we recognize that all people are different and valuable in their own way – despite what some media tells us.

In a chapter titled “Dealing with Global Change”, a photo of signs welcoming refugees has a speech bubble over it saying, “Around the world, protesters showed resilience by working to welcome and support refugees.” This seems a strange use of the word resilience. It would seem more accurate to say that the protesters are showing support for those who are resilient in the face of overwhelming adversity.

“Your Resilience Toolkit” is a four-page chapter highlighting “a “toolkit” of strategies to help you continue to develop and use resilience in your life”. These are “Approach Change with Positivity”, “Prioritize Self-care”, “Maintain Positive Self-esteem”, “Keep a Routine”, “Set and Work toward Goals”, “Build a Support Network”, “Look to Role Models”, and “Get Involved”. This is excellent information but doesn’t really justify buying a whole book. Perhaps this information could be better presented as a poster or infographic.

A weakness of the book is the choice of visual presentation. The text and photos in Change & Resilience are presented to look like torn pieces of paper overlapping each other on a page. The result is messy. It is sometimes difficult to follow where you are supposed to look or read next. Some pages have as many as six different chunks of text or photos overlapping.
Speech bubbles are used to add information but are not meant to attribute the information as speech. It is a small point but adds to the confusion in some places. A clearer presentation of that information would be to have included it in a shape bubble without the tag end looking like it is supposed to be spoken by someone.

Words included in the glossary appear as bold in the body of the text. Unfortunately, some of the bolded words appear in black on a dark coloured background, serving to make the word less visible, instead of highlighting it.

Although some of the information in Change & Resilience is well-chosen and relevant, overall, I recommend making room for this book in your school or library only if you can’t find anything better.