Ambitious Girl

Harris and Valdez’s appreciative celebration of female ambition begins with a televised broadcast of a Black female speaker being labeled “too assertive, too persistent, too ambitious, too loud.” In Valdez’s bright, largely unlined art, a brown-skinned girl, who walks up the street with three older Black women, is not discouraged by what she sees. Though she sometimes hears “you’re ‘too that’ or you’re ‘too this,’ ” her mother explains that historical figures, shown in a navy wash, “have opened so many doors,” paving the way for this child’s hopes and desires to flourish. The same words once used to criticize the televised woman are seen in a new, positive light by book’s end: digital art shows the girl taking a stage of her own, where she proudly exclaims that she, too, is “AMBITIOUS!” Ages 4–8. [em](Jan.) [/em]