Confidence and Acceptance

Last Christmas, Tower asked me for some picture book ideas for her children and I thought of her when I read this new picture book by Nancy Gow:

It's called Ten Toes and a Prince's Nose.

It begins:

There once was a princess so lovely and fair

with ruby red lips and a mane of brown hair.

Her voice was like honey, her smile soft and sweet.

But the beautiful princess had gigantic feet!

This beautiful princess with very big feet and a fun-loving prince with an enormous nose have a hard time attracting a suitable partner. But when the self-conscious pair meet on a ski lift in the Alps (their peculiarities are well hidden beneath winter clothing), they quickly discover the beauty that lies beneath appearances.

Nancy Gow

Nancy Gow was a rock singer in her teens and twenties and then did an about-turn, becoming a yoga instructor. Her favorite job, though, has been a children's book writer. She got the idea for Ten Toes and a Prince's Nose when she went to a meditation retreat and heard the instructor say that if we could stop tinkering with our personalities for a while and just relax and be still, we could look deeper into who we really are.

And from that thought she wrote the refrain for this book:

I am what I am and that's all right with me.

I don't have to be different, I just have to be.

I don't want to be somebody else. No sir-ree!

I am what I am and that's all right with me.

• It's rhymes.
• It's funny.
• It's got a great message of acceptance and seeing past appearances.

Here are some other books about confidence and acceptance:

Drawing is what Ramon does. It's what makes him happy. But in one split second, all that changes. A single reckless remark by Ramon's older brother, Leon, turns Ramon's carefree sketches into joyless struggles. Luckily for Ramon, his little sister, Marisol, sees the world differently. She opens his eyes to something a lot more valuable that getting things just "right."

High on energy and imagination, this ode to self-esteem encourages kids to appreciate everything about themselves--inside and out. Messy hair? Beaver breath? So what! Here's a little girl who knows what really matters.

Molly Lou Melon may be tiny, clumsy, buck-toothed, and with a voice "like a bullfrog being squeezed by a boa constrictor," but she doesn't mind. Her grandmother has utmost confidence in her, and tells her at every turn to believe in herself. "Sing out clear and strong and the world will cry tears of joy," Grandma says. But Molly Lou's self-assurance is put to the test when she moves to a new town, away from her friends and beloved grandmother. During her first week of school, Ronald Durkin taunts Molly Lou Melon in the dull-witted but sharp-edged manner of career bullies, calling her "shrimpo" and "bucky-toothed beaver." Our heroine barely flinches as she systematically sets out to prove herself, and Ronald Durkin ends up feeling pretty foolish.

Edward is tired of being an emu, so he decides to try being something else for a change.First he spends some time swimming with the seals. Next, he lounges with the lions. He even slithers with the snakes. But Edward soon discovers that being an emu may not be so bad after all. So he heads back to his pen, only to find a big surprise awaiting him.

Through alternating points of view, a girl's and a boy's, Jamie Lee Curtis's triumphant text and Laura Cornell's lively artwork show kids that the key to feeling good is liking yourself because you are you.

For more ideas, click [here] and [here] and [here].