As you open Little Voice and begin to read the poem that is intended to both rhyme and inspire, you suddenly stop and wonder, “Is that a typo?”
The child looks scared in the illustration, but scared is not the word intended here – the word, in fact, is scarred.
To be scarred refers to a ‘permanent change in a person’s character resulting from emotional distress’.
We’ve all been there where we’ve let our fears consume us, our mistakes dissuade us and the thought of future failure haunt us. Our Little Voice, however, teaches us to not be afraid, to try again when we fail, to not let the past stop us from moving ahead in our future.
Yes, at first it may seem like a typo but when we consider its meaning, when we consider its context, when we consider the rhyme it must rhyme with (“hard”), we understand that the word is in fact scarred and not scared.
Though in this sense of the word we don’t have physical scars to show for such pain, an emotional scar is still a sign of incomplete healing, a past experience that has yet to be overcome.
There are those who fall down and get back up again, but there are in fact many who fall down and lose the will to persevere. It is those people who need reminding of their Little Voice, the one deep down inside us that tell us we can get back up and we will!