One day a regular girl has an extraordinary idea. She wants to make a magnificent thing. She has a vision of how the thing will work, what it will look like and devises a plan to make it happen. She works hard but when she finishes the thing is not magnificent. In fact, it is nothing like what she had envisioned at all.
All readers can relate to the experience and it’s especially valuable for kids to see other kids try something and not succeed on the first attempt. Kids are repeatedly told that if they work hard at something, they can achieve it. What they aren’t often told is that sometimes they’ll have to fail first AND have the patience to start over.
This book is unique in that it shows the process of the “regular girl” stepping back from her failed invention and having to do some deep thinking to redesign her project. It shows her hitting a wall where she feels like she is better off quitting, and it shows her pushing through with new ideas.
Perhaps the most valuable aspect of the story is that while it is ultimately a morality tale, it forgoes the use of heavy sugar to get across its message. It shows faults in the girl and doesn’t make her the hero of the world for conquering her goal, she simply becomes her own hero.
This book is written and illustrated by Ashley Spires and was published by Kids Can Press.
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