Review: Maya’s Big Scene

Title: Maya’s Big Scene
Author: Isabelle Arsenault
Genre: Children’s, Picture book
Publisher: Tundra Books
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: February 2, 2021
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Maya’s imagination sets the stage for her friends to act out her feminist play. Can she make room in her queendom for the will of the people? A funny picture book about leadership and fair play for fans of King Baby and Olivia.

Maya is a bossy, burgeoning playwright and loves to have the kids in her Mile End neighborhood bring her scenes to life. Her latest work, about a feminist revolution, is almost ready for public performance. But as her actors begin to express their costume preferences, Maya quickly learns that their visions may not match hers . . . and as both Director and Queen, Maya demands obedience and loyalty in her queendom of equality! But she soon realizes — with the help of her friends and subjects — that absolute bossiness corrupts absolutely!

Review:

Maya has invited her friends to put on a feminist play with her. She will run a queendom and they will all be equal. However, once they begin to get costumes and figure out their parts, the other kids realize there isn’t really equality for all in this play that features a queendom ruled by one person.

This story starts out with a great premise of the children creating a world with equality. They want everyone in the play to be equals. The problem with this comes up pretty quickly when Maya bosses them around. The other kids realize it isn’t an equal society if one person is in charge. This teaches them firsthand what an equal society would look like.

I loved the illustrations in this book. Most of them were black and white, with some of the costumes and props in colour. This highlighted the purples, reds, and pinks that Maya wanted them to wear in her queendom. I also liked that the children were playing in Maya’s backyard, but her neighbours’ yards were visible in the images too. This makes it more realistic, since there would be more houses beside her house in real life. It shows that there is life beyond the pages in the book.

This is a cute picture book!

Thank you Penguin Random House Canada for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What to read next:

Other books in the series:

• Colette’s Lost Pet
• Albert’s Quiet Quest

Have you read Maya’s Big Scene? What did you think of it?