This book puts me on a fence balancing between, do I like, it, do I not. The story did what any good story should do, it taught me things I didn’t know. I had no idea Oprah was a news anchor, or that she wore flour sack dresses. I have not been a lifelong follower of Oprah so this book was very informative. I came to know Oprah more after the couch jumping incident. What I find interesting, are the things the author chooses to include in this story, as well as what they choose to leave out. Nowhere does it mention that Oprah started school in places where girls could not get an education. But it does mention her “Favorite Things” episodes, and the car giveaway. I find it unusual the mention the free cars because of the back lash dealing with taxes that each person had to pay to accept those cars. I don’t know what really happened, but shouldn't this be mentioned, or the car story left out of the tale? On top of all that is the writing. I know this book is written with children in mind, but it also reads like it was written by a novice. Word choices and sentence structure is odd in places, and it reads more like a spoken word presentation than a book. I was expecting this to be a picture book but it was set up as a chapter book, full of illustrations. I would like to see a finished edition as this review is based off a digital galley, and as such funny things happen with the layout. The paper cut illustrations are masterfully done and deserve more presence then what is seen in the digital galley. If you want to introduce a young reader to someone you admire this book would work, but I think it can, and has been done better.
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