Walking around the halls of elementary school, I loved myself. I rocked a neon green and pink cast and wore “confidence shades.” Ultimately, I did what made me happy. As I left elementary school and moved onto middle and high school, I began to realize the world wasn’t as easy as I’d expected. I began to look in the mirror and notice every imperfection. I started to care too much about how many people liked my images on social media and what people around me thought. It wasn’t until recently that I stumbled upon the children’s book, “You Are Special” by Max Lucado. Wooden people within the story would either get gold stars or grey dots. The main character, Puchinello, was covered in grey dots because he was not viewed as perfect by his peers or the greater society. I related to Puchinello more than ever. I always felt like an outcast, not having friends to go to school dances with or people to hang out with on the weekends. I morphed into someone I wasn’t on social media in hopes to appear happy. I began to struggle with depression and didn’t see an ending to not being accepted. In the book, Puchinello meets Luchia, a wooden girl who has no stars nor dots because she doesn’t care what others think. By the end of the story, Puchinello realized he is special and when he really believed it, his dots began to slowly fall to the ground because “the stickers only stick if you let them.” After reading this story, it has become a conscious decision of mine to decide if other people’s opinions will affect my mental-health, self-worth, and authenticity. The ultimate answer is the only person I need to please is myself, something I still work towards every day.

This children’s book will always be my favorite because it teaches people of all ages to be kind and compassionate. It portrays the message to always be yourself and stay true your beliefs. With such hate in the world today and the pressure put on girls to be model perfect, this book is crucial. I love this book because it taught me to follow my path no matter how people may try to divert and deter me from it. I know I need to stay true to myself and maybe even find that pair of “confidence shades.”