‘Spoon’ by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustrated by Scott Morgan tells the story of a young Spoon who thinks the other utensils have better lives.              

Young Spoon lives with a large family, including a very fancy Aunt Silver. However he can’t help but being a little jealous of some of his friends. For instance, Knife is so lucky! He gets to cut, and he gets to spread! Spoon can’t do that. Not to mention, Fork gets to go practically everywhere! And chopsticks, everyone thinks they’re really cool and exotic!

Spoon’s mother doesn’t try to change his mind, instead, she answers back in a neutral way. However, young Spoon didn’t know what his friends were saying this very minute.

“Spoon is so lucky!” said Knife. “He’s so fun and easy going. Everyone’s so serious about me; no one’s ever allowed to be silly with me like they are with Spoon.” Meanwhile, Fork thinks Spoon is so lucky to measure stuff, and the Chopsticks thinks Spoon is lucky to be able to function apart.”

At bed, Spoon’s mom tells Spoon that the other utensils will never dive headfirst into a bowl of ice cream. After that, she invites him into the big bed.

The moral of the story is to always appreciate who you are. Everyone has weaknesses and strengths which others don’t have. This story connects with WE Day because some of the performers there talked about how we are good enough the way we are. I understand that Spoon might feel like he lacked a lot of things his friend had, but he didn’t think about everything that he could do that no other utensils can.

Overall, I think this story is for children from ages 6-10, and is a great and creative way of telling them to appreciate who they are.