Five-year-old aspiring dancer Becca is furious when she learns about her lazy eye: "Ballerinas don't wear glasses. And they especially do NOT wear patches!" She grudgingly chooses purple glasses and a pink eye patch, but she doesn't want to go to school the next morning: "Everyone is going to think I look stupid." Then her brother offers to lend her his pirate costume, to match her patch, and Becca becomes Ballerina Pirate, dancing her way through class. By the end of the day, all the kids yearn for a patch like Becca's. The split-second reversal from despondent patch hater to Ballerina Pirate may seem abrupt to some children, especially those struggling to accept patches (or other corrective gear) of their own. Still, this is a well-paced, reassuring offering on an unusual topic, and the bright, cheerful, scribbly drawings of twirling, high-spirited Becca and her friends reinforce the messages of normalcy and acceptance.

Amblyopia, or lazy eye, is an unlikely hook to hang a story on, but since nearly five percent of children experience the condition, and may feel a twinge of discomfort regarding its treatment, the time has definitely come for this issue. Headley's heroine, Rebecca, makes the best of her eye patch. When her curious classmates ask her about the patch - fortunately they are not a cruel bunch - she tells them she's a pirate and makes a game of it. When they persist, she becomes a pirate eye (cannily shifting into the singular) or a cyclopean monster, and Vane draws Rebecca lunging into her roles with brio and dash, and a good and scary face. Who knows - maybe eye patches will become accessorizing statements, but for an issue-driven offering, this one's not bad.

What could have been a saccharine and didactic message book about accepting differences is, instead, a lovely and surprising story that will certainly be enjoyed as a read-aloud. Becca's doctor discovers that she's got a lazy eye and needs a patch and glasses to strengthen her eyesight. The five-year-old is worried that the other students will think she looks stupid so, to boost her confidence, her older brother lends her his favorite pirate costume to go with her purple glasses and bright pink patch (this girl is clearly partial to pink). The bold hues in the cartoonlike watercolors reinforce Becca's and her classmates' energy. The students are fascinated as she plays Becca the Ballerina Pirate, Private Eye, and One-Eyed Monster before admitting the real reason for her patch. The illustrations dance off the pages, and Becca's exuberance shines through.

Becca is a five-year-old aspiring ballerina with a strong preference for pink. When the eye doctor tells her she not only needs to wear glasses but also a patch over her right eye, she resists. But Becca has a big imagination and soon figures out a way to make the best of her situation. She tells her classmates she is Becca the Ballerina Pirate, Becca the Private Eye, and Becca the One-Eyed Monster. Soon her classmates are so envious that they all want to wear an eye patch, while Becca's teacher skillfully encourages Becca to explain the truth. Justina Chen Headley's spirited story revolves around amblyopia, or lazy eye, a condition that affects one out of every twenty-five children under the age of six. Mitch Vane's brightly colored pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations capture the energy -- and passion for pink -- of a rambunctious little girl.

The Patch, by Justina Chen Headley and illustrated by Mitch Vane, is an endearing children's picture book. The main character, Becca, is five and an aspiring ballerina. Becca learns she has an eye condition called lazy eye. She has to wear a patch on her stronger eye to help her weak eye improve, and she also needs glasses. Ballerinas, according to Becca, do neither, but her mother insists.

Becca finds a series of inventive ways to explain her eye patch to her friends. Her brother offers to loan her his pirate costume, and she becomes Becca the ballerina pirate. She and her friends jeté over wild waves and plié on the heads of crocodiles on their way to finding treasure. Becca becomes a private eye and then a one-eyed monster. Finally, Becca admits the truth, that she has a lazy eye. Far from ridiculing her, her friends are jealous.

According to the author's note, four out of every 100 children under the age of six suffer from lazy eye (Amblyopia). The Patch provides a positive example to kids facing real issues. Both the text and the illustrations draw you in. In the dance sections of the book, the text and illustrations are well matched: an adult could point to the illustrations while reading the dance terms to give a child a sense of what the terms signify. I could easily see the colorful illustrations converted to a PBS Kids or Nick Jr. cartoon. The stories in The Patch deserve a great choreographer.

The cover illustration of The Patch shows Becca wearing a pink tutu with a pink eye patch. To some extent, Becca is a pink girlie-girl of the sort that Peggy Orenstein worries about in Cinderella Ate My Daughter, but Becca also has assertive qualities that do not fit the stereotype. The complexity and strength of her character are some of the things I like about The Patch. So, while at first glance The Patch looks like a book for girls, it isn't just for girls. My field testing bears this out. My two and three-quarters years old daughter has responded positively to The Patch, but so did my four year old nephew: he asked me to read The Patch to him several times over the course of a week.

If you are looking for high quality children's literature to add to your child's bookshelf, I strongly recommend The Patch.