Ambitious Girl

PreS-Gr 2–The niece of Vice President–elect Kamala Harris probably knows a thing or two about this topic: A girl can never be too ambitious. A young girl—she is brown-skinned, with black hair, but there is no ethnic background that is not included in the many crowd scenes of this jolly, positive book—infers from the world around her that she is too confident, too ambitious, too loud, too proud, and too confident. The quick moral? Don’t let the world judge you—”You tell them who you are.” The story is inclusive of all girls and some nonbinary folk in uplifting illustrations that shout the lessons, that “too” is darkly overwhelming, but women before her have opened doors. Here, also, is the quote children everywhere have been learning in this political season—”You may be the first someday, but don’t be the last—make space for more!” The colors intensify throughout the story until the resonant end.