I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The story is touching, and accompanied by cute art(though I do wish the people had been left as people in this particular story), and was a lovely read. I do wish there was a little more to it such as maybe some discussion about accessibility and inclusiveness at the end, but I recognize that the author was going for a gentle message. One that I hope does work.

As a disabled adult who was once a disabled child, I am too familiar with the inaccessibility of children's playground equipment both at schools and parks. It's yet another way that we're made to be aware of how different and separate we are from those children able to play on it. The efforts that the students at Glen Lake Elementary School went through to see that their friend was not left out and made to feel included, and writing a book to bring more awareness to this story - and the issue that brought about it in the first place - is important. Not just to show the kindness and importance of community, but to show that everyone deserves the same treatment.

However, I will also add that from a disabled perspective, it's also sad this type of inspiration rhetoric - what I'm choosing to use instead of the other term - needs to be shared at all when wheelchair users, and disabled people in general, have existed as part of society for a loooooong time and should be thought of when designing things like school layouts and playground equipment. And while inspiration rhetoric can also be harmful, I'm hoping that this book will have the intended impact for once.