This is an adorable picture book with beautiful visuals and a lovely message within!

This is the perfect book to share with children to celebrate diversity and community.

The rhyming style worked really well and would be wonderful to read aloud with a child.

Overall a really cute and inclusive picture book that will leave a warm fuzzy feeling after reading!

This book is absolutely gorgeous! It is a must have for all home and school/public libraries. Nine little people is stunning in both its message and joyfully lyrical language, as well as its entirely homey and unique illustration style. This is going to be a story tine favorite my at library, and it is wonderful to hear the inclusive backstory from the author's note at the end. None little people starts with nice little babies freshly born and walks readers through their lives and best friendship together. I love that this read touches on richness meaning so many different things, and will serve as a beautiful jumping off point to discuss all different types of people and different bodies. Reading this aloud flows effortlessly and I look forward to doing it for years to come.

Oh my gosh what a precious story!!! This one really touched my heart with how sweet and cozy it is. I love the diversity and representation. I read the author’s note at the end and love that they included it. To the author, you have such a wise and bright child :)

The illustrations are really pretty as well.

Thank you so much for this arc!

In an epilogue, Regina Feldmann beautifully describes her thoughts on the book and her motivation for writing a nursery rhyme book based on “10 kleine Zappelfinger”.
The Zappelfingers are already a - correct and important - adaptation to remove a racist foreign term from the well-known nursery rhyme.
But “Why does it always have to be ten?”, her daughter remarked. Nursery rhymes, which we often recite with sequences of movements, refer to the ten fingers, the ten toes, and so on.

So what do such rhymes convey to children who don't have 10 fingers, two arms, ..... ?

“‘9 little people’ is an ode to a generation of children who already know that they are right just the way they are [...].” (Afterword from the book)

Martina Stuhlberger has illustrated the rhyme with pictures that make you linger warmly on the pages. 9 little people and their families, who live in a wide variety of family forms and offer plenty of potential for identification.

The many details and facets of the -isms that have been included in the rhyme are impressive. For example, “wealth” - whether financial or immaterial - is given a double page “9 little people have different kinds of days. 9 little people are rich in different ways.”.

Overall, a playful approach dominates. The rhymes and the book can be an impetus for conversation and reflection for children and families to talk about different aspects of togetherness and individuality, but they don't have to be and can also simply have a subversive effect.

9 Little People is an adorable book about newcomers to the world. They live sweet lives with their loved ones. They engage together in special ways. The illustrations, especially the vignettes with their individual families are very sweet. I loved the diversity of the characters. The colors are light and cheerful. This is very much a go-to book that will be read often.
Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the chance to read this delightful book in exchange for an honest review.