I'm a girl! by Yasmin Ismail

Bloomsbury, 2015. ISBN 9781408857007
(Age: 5+) Recommended. Stereotypes, Being yourself. A gloriously energetic story deriding stereotyping of a young girl who knows she is a girl and is proud of it, but demands to be different. The phrase, 'I'm a girl!' appears every second double page as she rails against people thinking her a boy because of what she wears or does. Readers will love saying the phrase as it comes up, yelling it out when the font size becomes more strident. Although she's supposed to be nice, all sugar and spice, the illustrations show that she is messy, active and out there. Readers will laugh out loud at the illustrations showing her to be the opposite of what girls are supposed to be. She's fast and brave and spontaneous, but when the librarian offers her a nice boy's book about boats, she yells 'I'm a girl!', or when she plays with the others and prefers a car to a doll, and told again that girls like dolls, or boys like cars, then the refrain screams out of the page, 'I'm a girl!'. A fun look at stereotyping which readers will adore, the illustrations will intrigue the readers as they follow the girl's adventures in trying different things meant to be for boys, and when she finds a like minded boy at the end, the theme is doubly cemented in the readers' minds.
A book to read out loud, with children joining in, a book to be discussed and read again in classrooms and at home.
Fran Knight