Do you have daughters or granddaughters? Do you teach girls, coach girls, or babysit girls? Do you mentor girls at church or babysit for girls down the street? If you can even come close to answering yes to any of these questions, then please check out A Girl Like You by Frank and Carla Murphy, illustrated by Kayla Harren!
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Written by husband-and-wife-and-daughter-raising team of Frank (seasoned children’s book author, teacher, and coach) and Carla (pediatric nurse and debut writer) Murphy, A Girl Like You is an ode to all that makes every individual girl in the world beautiful, brilliant, and uniquely special. In the press release for A Girl Like You, the Murphys said, “One of our hopes with this book is to help empower girls to make strong, daring, brave, and bold choices — take action and live these words every day.” And this text reminds readers that not only are they strong, daring, brave, and bold, but they’re also hard-working, resilient, kind, thoughtful, empathetic, and more!
While A Girl Like You embodies powerful lessons for young girls to internalize, Frank and Carla have also included many powerful reminders to the adults reading this, lessons that even with age and maturity, we might have forgotten over the years. For me, I pause every time I read the words, “Do say sorry when you’re wrong or hurtful. Don’t make a habit of saying sorry for no reason.” Let’s all remember how much the world needs every single one of us, and let’s all make sure that we celebrate that fact with the young girls in our lives, helping them to be their best, more caring, strongest, boldest, and bravest selves that they can be!
Kayla Harren illustrated the first in the series, A Boy Like You, and her illustrations are delightfully joyous, diverse, and inclusive. You’re likely to spend hours rereading this one just to take in the stories the illustrations are telling you, but please make sure to also spend time with the Author’s Note and Writing Activity in the end, as both will give you great starting points for conversations around kindness, strength, boldness, and courage with the girls in your life.
It’s worth noting that our older daughter loves this one so much that not only did I catch her reading it on her own, but once she realized I was taking pictures, she insisted on taking more herself, to share her favorite pictures with you!
Many families have traditions of writing a note in a book for their children on each birthday, or of having their kids’ teachers sign a book for them at the end of each school year. If you’re looking to start a tradition like that (and it’s never too late to start!), then A Girl Like You would make a perfect love-letter book!
A Girl Like You releases this Wednesday, July 15! If you liked this, be sure to check out the companion A Boy Like You (written by Frank Murphy). You might also enjoy Dear Girl, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Paris Rosenthal, illustrated by Holly Hatam. I’ve also added this to our courage booklist!
A big thank you to Sleeping Bear Press for sending us this book to read with our girls. All thoughts and opinions are my own — and my thought is this one will have a special place in our family for a long time!
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