The Value of Fairy Tales

Fairy Tale and Folk Tale recommendations at A Mighty Girl from picture books to chapter books including books with diverse characters. One of my favorites is Uni the Unicorn by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.

The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munch is one of my go to books for baby showers. 

The Sonoma County Library has eighteen copies. The AR is 3.8.

The Princess in Black series by Shannon and Dean Hale is a favorite of my youngest granddaughter.

The Sonoma County Library has eighteen copies. Thr AR is 3.2.

The Whisper by Pamela Zagerenski 

Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs by Mo Willems

Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee

The Sonoma County Library has thirteen copies. The AR is 4.9.

This just a sample of the almost 200 books with mighty girls as heroines at A Mighty Girl. There are literally hundreds of articles and topics all with book recommendations, check it out.

Uni the Unicorn

A couple of my granddaughters were unicorn true believers. They loved this story about Uni, who unlike her unicorn friends and family, believes that little girls are real.

Uni dreams of a strong, smart, magical little girl who would be her best friend. They would run fast, explore and help creatures in need or they could just sit and talk about important things. But most fun would be sliding down rainbows together. Not too far away, is a little girl, who unlike her friends and family, believes that unicorns are real; who is just waiting to be Uni's friend.

The author, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, wrote one of the blog's favorites, Exclamation Mark, a book in story, style and design about as far away from Uni the Unicorn as you can get but the theme is similar: believing in yourself. Bridgette Barrager illustrations are exactly what a six year old would want to see.

The AR is 3.2 but it would be a good book for beginning readers with good phonics skills because there are few words on each page and the text is large and well-spaced. The Sonoma County Library has twelve copies.

Exclamation Mark

First, let me say, I love the old school writing paper look of the book. All the pages are the newsprint with  the blue lines and dotted lines that kids are using in elementary school even today. Even the title is simple: ! Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld is about an exclamation mark who just wants to fit in, but the only time he doesn’t stand out is when he is sleeping. He tries hard to fit in, but it doesn’t work, he still stands out. One day he meets ? (Question Mark) who peppers him with endless questions until he yells STOP! Both ! and ? were pretty impressed with his exclamation. So he tries again, first small, then bigger and bigger until he is exclaiming all kinds of phrases: That’s Great! Happy Birthday! Bravo! He could not wait to show his friends what he could do. His friends were sure he could do it along.   

This is a great story about finding your talents and using them. It is also a great fun to read aloud. The Sonoma County Library has a few copies. Scholastic has the reading level listed as second grade.