Books like Antoinette
By Kelly DiPucchio
For the kid who feels a little different from their siblings, Antoinette says that quiet, uncertain feeling can turn out to be a gift. Warm, encouraging, and quietly triumphant, with a burst of park-set urgency in the middle.
A giraffe named Gerald longs to dance but his crooked knees and thin legs keep tripping him up, until an unlikely friend offers just the encouragement he needs.
A young penguin named Pip-Pip longs to swim in the sea with his friends, but fear of the water holds him back until he finds the courage to take the plunge.
A war horse named Clyde is terrified of nearly everything, but faced with real danger, he decides that acting brave might matter more than actually feeling brave.
A parent looks at a child and wonders aloud, in rhyme, about all the different people they might grow up to be — brave, clever, silly, wise — no matter what.
A gentle pony too plain for the beautiful horses inside the walled city ends up the only one who can save its children when the bridge breaks in half.
A warm, direct address to a girl reader, moving through everyday moments — muddy puddles, freckled faces, tabletop dances — to remind her she's powerful, valued, and worthy of love just as she is.
A young Japanese American artist grows up determined to draw, even as her family is sent to a WWII internment camp — and she goes on to create groundbreaking picture books that show children of every race together.
A lyrical picture book celebrates self-worth, kindness, and respect for others, reminding every child who reads it that they have purpose and are already enough.
A champion Italian cyclist who won the 1938 Tour de France secretly uses his bicycle and racing fame to help save Jewish lives during World War II, risking everything without ever telling a soul.
A determined young dancer in the 1930s and 40s trains for ballet despite discriminatory schools, then refuses to paint her skin white for a company's offer — and rises to become the Met Opera's first Black prima ballerina.
A girl who loves acting out every story she hears sets her heart on playing Peter Pan in the school play, then hears a classmate say she can't — because she's a girl, and because she's Black.
An original poem celebrates girls and girlhood in all their forms, honoring how girls have shaped history while calling them to stand together and march boldly into the future.
