I Look like a Girl
PreSchool-Grade 2-In this vibrantly illustrated picture book, exuberant girls seem to burst both the limits of the page and the confines of traditional expectations. Each child, while engaging in typical childhood activities, is imagining a life as free and wild as that of a tiger, dolphin, mustang, condor, or wolf. "Throw out those glass slippers.-No prince is waiting for me," the girls say, but the strongly implied message is that they're the ones who aren't waiting for a Cinderella ending. Instead, these youngsters, like the animals they dream of, glory in their own outer and inner selves. The richly colored oil paintings accompanying the brief, sometimes rhyming text will delight storyhour audiences, while smaller details, like a "Cinderella" movie poster, a tiger kitten in a jungle garden, and a come-to-life stuffed monkey, will reward observant viewers. A celebration of "what is wild, in the heart-so I can be me," this book does for girls what the author's All the Colors of the Earth (Morrow, 1994) did for children of ethnic diversity.Meg Stackpole, Rye Free Reading Room, NYCopyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.