It's Hard to Be Five: Learning How to Work My Control Panel

Written by Jamie Lee Curtis
Illustrated by Laura Cornell
Joanna Cotler Books, 2004
5/5

I was pleasantly surprised when I realized this book was by Jamie Lee Curtis. I usually assume books with celebrity authors are not the best quality, but in this case my own biases are completely unjustified. It's Hard to be Five is a delightfully silly book about a five year old struggling to learn self-control.

The story is told through rhythmic verse with a nursery-rhyme feeling. Instead of a traditional font, the text helps express the moods of the narrator by getting bigger or smaller, bolder or less bold, and mixing up upper and lower case letters. It also complements the illustrations; for example, on one page the words form a circle around a picture of children sitting in a circle. The illustrations themselves are filled with extra jokes for parents, such as the T-shirt that reads "The 5th Beatle" or the map that shows "Five Around the World".

This is a fantastic book that shows real empathy with a five-year old's attempts to become more responsible and desire to still enjoy some of the perks of being "little".