Pink Stories for Girls That You'll Want to Read.

Continuing on from my last post, I feel I best counter with some pink girly picture books that are actually worth the price of admission.

Fancy Nancy by Jane O'Connor & Robin Preiss Glasser (illustrator)
(HarperCollins, 4-8)
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Yeah, that's right, I said Fancy Nancy. Say what you will about overexposure or commercialism or the buckets of money I'm sure Jane O'Connor is making, where books like Pinkalicious or Princess Penelope falter due to the sheer obnoxiousness of the main character, Nancy Clancy is sweet, genuine little girl with loving relationships and a penchant for the finer things in life. And the large fancy words she loves to use are always explained so the kids learn from the context. (Which also puts it over Princess Penelope where I feel kids probably don't know the word 'reveled', or my problematic reading of Tony Baloney.)

Nancy wishes her life and family were fancier, but instead of being obnoxious, petulant or bratty, she and her family dress up together for special dinners and tea.

I haven't read all of the Fancy Nancy books yet (and there are a lot), but my favorite part of the series is Nancy's relationship with her little sister, who is straight adorable. My particular favorite examples of this are Fancy Nancy: Splendiferous Christmas and Fancy Nancy's Fabulous Fashion Boutique. In Splendiferous Christmas, we see Nancy trotting around in a pretty spectacular pair of leg warmers the entire book long, which she then gives to her little sister at the end. In Fabulous Fashion Boutique, the Clancys have a yard sale the week before Nancy's little sister JoJo's birthday. When Nancy sells a necklace that JoJo really wanted instead of giving it to her for her birthday, she realizes her mistake and buys it back instead of saving her money for the fancy fan she wanted. JoJo is thrilled and their parents reward Nancy by buying her the fan. Nancy and JoJo are just the sweetest and it's a nice message about doing good things and good things will come back to you.

Fancy Nancy: Splendiferous Christmas by Jane O'Connor & Robin Preiss Glasser (illustrator)
(HarperCollins, 4-8)
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fancy Nancy's Fabulous Fashion Boutique by Jane O'Connor & Robin Preiss Glasser (illustrator)
(HarperCollins, 4-8)
My rating: 4 of 5 stars




Shoe-La-La! by Karen Beaumont & LeUyen Pham (illustrator)
(Scholastic, 4-8)
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is, straight up, a SUPER cute book. Four diverse little girls, Emily, Ashley, Kaitlyn and Claire, go shoe shopping. Yeah, it's a pretty simple plot. But it has a lovely rhyming structure of all the different and wacky shoes they try on. And it's full of gorgeous drawings by LeUyen Pham, who also illustrated Julianne Moore's Freckleface Strawberry.

There's really not too much else to say. This one I wouldn't say even just relegates to girly girls, since they aren't just looking at fancy shoes, but all sorts of fun and wild shoes. A great read aloud with gorgeous pictures and four fabulous little girls.


Alice the Fairy by David Shannon
(Blue Sky Press, 4-8)
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'll admit it, at first I was a little put off by David Shannon's illustrations, both in this and his No, David! series. They're kind of creepy, with lopsided arms and big spaces between the teeth and other adults I've spoken to have said the same. However, I've never heard a kid say anything of the sort, they just love his books. So I gave Shannon a chance.

Alice's story is telling you all about how she's a Temporary Fairy and all the things that means she can do (and some things that only Permanent Fairies can do). Frankly, Alice the Fairy is what Princess Penelope is trying to be. Alice is more precocious than bratty, even when she's trouble, there's some sense of remorse, or at least that she knows she's done something wrong, instead of Penelope's indignance. Plus frankly it's just cute (using her fairy magic, she turns her dad's cookies into hers). Alice is a little girl with flaws and humor and she's even a little self-effacing which really works for the story. Really cute and wonderful.

So those are my pink little girl stories I really like. Still need a princess story to replace that Penelope, though.