Title: What Do You Say?
Author: Marilyn Tate Wilson
Illustrator: Dwight Nacaytuna
Publisher: PageTurner Press and Media
ISBN: 979-8-88963-734-9
Pages: 26
Genre: Children’s Educational
Reviewed by: Beth Adams
Hollywood Book Reviews
So much of our social behavior depends on our communication skills, and much of communication ability depends on being polite. In this cleverly created book titled, What Do You Say?, author Marilyn Tate Wilson interleaves situations needing a correct response from a child in a variety of instances.
These illustrated situations, when patiently read to the youngest of children, provides an interactive teaching/learning experience, structured for the parent to explain the socially-correct outcome of each scenario. Quite impressively, the teaching is done in an easy-going fashion, offering at times a “multiple-choice” answer for the children to choose from; occasionally with more than one correct answer, which further opens up an opportunity for more detailed discussions.
Examples are many. In one case a young brother, Dennis trips and bumps down his brother Bryan’s block tower, resulting in Bryan starting to cry. The mother asks Dennis, “What Do You Say?” and the choices offered are: “Please?; Thank you?; Sorry?; or Excuse me?.” As the first two are not at all appropriate, this allows a discussion between the parent and child to discuss the nuances between “Sorry – and – Excuse me.”
Other situations include: nagging and interrupting Mommy when she is on the phone; Grandma making cookies and offering the boys some; opening gifts at a birthday party; and my favorite one is when after drinking a big glass of soda quickly, Bryan does a loud “Burrrppp.” This makes a comical giggling situation when kids need to say “Excuse me.”
Many of the concepts on how to get the best results from this book are written in the forward, yet it seems obvious to use this as an educational tool, as an “open for discussion” foundation, and expand on other situations not covered within these pages. Kids learn from example, so it also reminds parents to express appropriate responses to everything they do in the presence of their children.
Marilyn Tate Wilson’s book is ideal for a family’s library. It is a book which offers readers a foundation in etiquette, politeness, and mostly being kind and considerate to others. It embraces the structure of our socialization as a society, family, and as individuals respecting others. What Do You Say? as a book, I say, “Yes!”