Where are the Girls?

Grace for Presidentby Kelly DiPucchio is a wonderful new picture book that starts with one little girl’s question “Where are the girls?”. Her teacher had put up a poster of presidents and Grace can’t believe her eyes. Great illustrations by LeUyen Pham add to the timely storyline. Grace announces to her class that she is going to be president and her teachers decides a school election is “a star-spangled idea”. Despite the other candidate being a boy who “was the spelling bee champion” and “captain of the soccer team”, Grace shows that hard work and keeping your promises really does pay off. The class election teaches the students about the electoral college in a way that makes it very understandable for readers. Students are assigned a state (with the corresponding number of electoral votes). Predictably for children of this age, the students/states line up behind the candidate of their own gender. The “equality state” of Wyoming ends up being the deciding vote as he casts his vote for “the best person for the job”. What a great message wrapped up in a beautiful and educational picture book. A must for classroom read-aloud this fall!