Can Do Girl! Sofia Valdez, Future Prez by Andrea Beaty

Even as a tot, Sofia was one who liked to help get things done.

A DREAMER. A DOER. A REAL GO-GETTER.

MOST PEOPLE LIKED GOOD. BUT SOFIA LIKED BETTER.

But when Sofia's dog pulls the leash out of her grandfather's hand and follows a squirrel up the local landfill, un-fondly known as Trash Mountain, they all come tumbling down, luckily landing on a squishy old pumpkin. But her abuelo hurts his leg, and Sofia has to walk to school alone. With plenty of time to think along the way, Sofia scowls at the foul rubbish in Trash Mountain... .

AND SOFIA HAS AN IDEA!

Why couldn't they get rid of the Trash Mountain and put up a park in its place. Sofia tells everyone her idea, and all the townspeople have suggestions for what they'd like to see in a new park. Sophia plotted out a sketch of the park with something for everyone.

HER NEIGHBORS SMILED AND SAID, "LET ME KNOW WHEN IT'S DONE!"

THEY ALL THOUGHT SOFIA COULD BUILD IT ALONE!

And when Sofia goes down to City Hall, she gets the run-around, bounced from the Blue River Creek Office of Fun to the  Department of Duck Ponds, sent from office to office.. No one thinks anything can be done, especially by a little girl, all alone. But she screws up her courage, tells her story, and shows her plans to the Mayor, who promises to appoint a commission if she completes a petition.

And Sofia the Better Go-Getter gets it all done, with everyone pitching in to help, and Trash Mountain, now Citizen's Park, is no more, in Andrea Beaty's Sofia Valdez, Future Prez (The Questioneers). Says Kirkus Review, "Fun but earnest, this rhyming romp reminds readers that one young person can make a difference."

Just Your Usual Day in the Park: Where Did You Go Today? by Jenny Duke

GUESS WHAT?

TODAY I FLEW...

A girl and her father head off for a day in the park.

It's a great park, with a playground with all the usual equipment--swings and a slide, a sand box and pond, a climbing bar with tunnels, a zipline, and even a zoo where you can watch the animals while they watch you.

But she's not really there...

She flies off the swings and above the treetops, climbs a metal mountain and slides down the other side, sails in a little sailing vessel to faraway places, where she crawls through a cold and dark passageway to a sandy desert, mounts a camel and...

... RODE ALL THE WAY HOME.

Imagination is at the heart of child's play and at the root of human creativity, and that easy or not-so-easy jump down the rabbit hole or through the wardrobe door is a valuable aspect of personality that some of us can keep as long as we live.

Every time someone reads a fiction book, he or she enters an alternate universe completely created by someone else and lives in it, and every time a person puts musical sounds together in a new way or has a novel idea, they are entering into that state just on the other side of known reality, and Jenny Duke's story of her little park-goer, Where Did You Go Today? (Child's Play Library) (Child's Play, 2019), celebrates that all-too-human power to conceive of what is not but perhaps could be. Duke's artwork depicts possibilities that are both recognizable and yet not quite concrete, just right for this daydream of a day in the park.