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Saturday, November 14, 2020

Dream Big! A Girl Like Me by Angela Johnson

I always dream. I'm flying in Supergirl underwear way up high!

You can dream of soaring high above the skyscrapers. But there are always some naysayers down below!

With everybody I know saying, "A girl like you shouldn't be flying up there in your underwear!"

In her fantasy she sees herself donning western boots, a jaunty kerchief, and a tall cowboy hat, and climbing those skyscrapers, rising from roof to rooftop.

It doesn't bother her when they say a girl like her belongs down on the ground in regular clothes like the rest of them.

But a girl can dream she swims the blue sea, one with the bright-colored fish and the waves. She can believe she belongs there instead of staying back there in dry clothes on the dry land. So she finds some like-minded girls--who dress in like somebody special, somebody who can wear crazy scarves and feathers and capes and crazy hats and parade through town to where the sea begins, where they own the beach....

...'cause a girl like me should always be thinking way up high... better than a dream."

Noted poet Angela Johnson's free-verse poem, A Girl Like Me (Millbrook Press, 2020) is all about girl power and the power within girls who come together to be all they can be, made engaging and arresting by artist Nina Crews' lighthearted collages of cityscapes through which flow butterflies and stars, ribbons, and the necessary fun hats, all strewn together with woven pastel hexagons that float and flow down to a joyful beach scene. More than a preview of Halloween costumes, this story is as light as a flying superhero, and as down to earth as a sandy parade on the beach. Publishers Weekly approves, saying--"A blithe celebration of individuality, guts, and sisterhood."

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