Books like Fancy Nancy and the Mermaid Ballet
By Jane O'Connor
Nancy wants the mermaid part so bad she can taste it, then gets stuck playing a tree in Fancy Nancy and the Mermaid Ballet. Kids who know that exact stomach-drop of disappointment love watching her decide a tree can still be fancy. The books below are for kids who cheer for the comeback, not just the win.
Three unlikely best friends — a ninja, a cowboy, and a bear — do everything together until competing to be the best at everything drives a wedge between them.
Instead of a jealous ballerina finding her place in the show, Leo: A Ghost Story by Mac Barnett follows a lonely ghost finding his place in a new family.
A zombie girl who loves to dance enrolls in a ballet class for human girls, but stage fright before her first recital makes her fear her moans and groans will scare everyone away.
If the tutus and pliés were the best part, Miss Lina's Ballerinas by Grace Maccarone gives your kid nine ballerinas' worth of that same studio joy.
A fish and his best friend, a tadpole, grow up together in a pond until the tadpole becomes a frog and hops off to explore dry land, leaving the fish desperate to follow.
The same bouncy rhyme and dress-up delight, but May I Bring a Friend? by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers takes it all the way to tea with a king and queen.
When the Primm family moves into their new apartment on East 88th Street, they find a crocodile named Lyle living in the bathtub — and slowly, surprisingly, come to love him.
Nancy dresses up as a mermaid to fit the part, and Itty-Bitty Kitty-Corn by Shannon Hale has a kitten just as sure she's secretly a unicorn.
A girl named Nora hears a tapping tentacle at her window and discovers a giant octopus living on her apartment roof, helping neighbors with chores — until one morning he's simply gone.
On a distant planet, a red Smed and a blue Smoo fall in love despite their families' rule that Smeds and Smoos never mix, sending both sides on a journey that tests old prejudices.
After moving to a cottage by the sea, a lonely girl finds a baby unicorn tangled in the weeds, left behind when a herd vanished from the shore, and cares for him through the seasons.
A girl who lives alone on a mountain asks the wind for a friend, and the wind sets out to bring her one.
