With rhythm, rhyme and the perfect amount of repetition, Girls Can Do Anything tells of many things that girls can do if they want to. Some possibilities explored include mountain climbing, making messes, winning medals and saving animals. The story regularly refers to the reader making it engaging and interactive, this, combined with the repeated mantra, ‘I’m a GIRL! I’m FANTASTIC! I’m strong, brave and proud!’ gives great self-worth.
Bright, detailed and fun illustrations show a diverse range of girls having a great time doing everything from pony riding to crane operating. There are girls with short hair, no hair, wheelchairs, burqas, different skin colours and more so hopefully all girls feel represented in some way.
The endpapers and one of the internal spreads show portraits of great females leaders such as statistician Florence Nightingale, primatologist Jane Goodall, tennis champion Serena Williams and cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova—the first woman in space. These portraits are a great prompt for discussion or further research.
I adore all the love and happiness which this book portrays; it is my favourite of all the girl power themed books I’ve read for the 5 – 8 age group and the repeat read requests from my five-year-old daughter confirms that it is a real winner!
Other titles by the creators of Girls Can Do Anything reviewed by Kids Book Review include Lunch on a Pirate Ship by Caryl Hart and You Can Never Run Out of Love illustrated by Ali Pye.
Title: Girls Can Do Anything!
Author: Caryl Hart
Illustrator: Ali Pye
Publisher: Scholastic, $15.99
Publication Date: 2 August 2018
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781407177380
For ages: 5 – 8
Type: Picture Book
