A COOL KID LIKE ME - HANS WILHELM

            Hello everyone, back again with me Vira Damayanti. Today, I would like to make another review about one of children’s literature. It is ‘A Cool Kid Like Me’, a book written by one and only Hans Wilhelm. According to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Wilhelm "He is a German-American writer, children’s book author and illustrator, and artist, He has written and/or illustrated over 200 books and mostly for children." After I read his biography, no wonder, this book is really readable, because Hans is expert in this field-children’s literature.

Even from the cover itself is very fascinating as well. There is a boy who seems to be afraid of something with his arms hugging a tedy bear tightly and hiding behind a blanket. To make it more unique, Hans chooses pink as a background of the cover, the title is typed in maroon, and so on. I do believe that the author must be have a spesific purpose behind his reason of choosing color for his book. Let me explain you one by one. From what I have read from many sources that color does have a meaning. Actually there are a few kind of color meanings based on what it belongs to. But, this time I will explain you the meaning of color psycologically because it relates with the message of the story.

According to https://www.colorpsychology.org/pink/ "Pink is a very contradictory color. Its meaning can depend greatly on the culture and context in which it is presented. It can be linked to feminine and masculine, shallowness and tenderness and many other things. Let’s take a look at the associations that pink has."

and " The maroon color is often used to represent intense and passionate things like; confidence, creative thoughts, excitement, power, risk, passion, love, ambition, courage, strength, warmth, and beauty."

Hence, in my opinion, the author chooses pink for the cover and maroon for the title is because the main character in this story is a boy who has two sides characters; cool and soft. In front of people he looks like an ice cold who doesn't like to show his love and empathy toward people, even with his parents. He leaks of attention and love from his parents, they often leave him due to their business. "My parents left me alone a lot. They thought I was a cool kid." They are wrong, they don't know the real side of him, His parents do not know that he can be soft as well. Fortunately, he still gets attention from his grandmother, she is the one whom he can share his story with, the one who knows him best more than his parents, she is such a good listener. That is why he really sad when his grandma leaves him for a vacation. He is afraid of loneliness when she left, but don't worry his grandma gives him something he didn't expect at all, guess what? she gives him a tedy bear. His parents are forbid him to play with it because he is a boy and too old for that, he thinks the same thing actually but because it is from his beloved grandma and she says that  it will company him while she is away, so he changes his mind that he loves the tedy bear.

His grandma is right, tedy bear is more like a duplicate of his grandma, it understands him like his grandma does, and the most important one is he doesn't feel alone even though his grandma is not around, it's all because of tedy bear.

Thank you for those who read this, I do appreciate your kindness :)