Review - Chase Your Dreams Little Princess

Chase Your Dreams Little Princess
by Aastha Miranpuri
illustrated by Ayesha
Date: 2021
Publisher: Aastha Miranpuri
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book non-fiction
Pages: 32
Format: e-book
Source: Amazon.com

Girls have the power to control their fates, make their dreams come true, and achieve anything they put their minds to. Girls are powerful beings.

Exceptional women in history paved a path of greatness for girls everywhere. Through their words and with their examples, these women have inspired generations.

Through innovation, education, fearlessness, determination, and hard-fought battles, these incredible women beat the odds.

Chase Your Dreams, Little Princess chronicles their remarkable stories and will inspire young minds to chase their dreams and go above and beyond to achieve them.

Grab your copy now for your favorite little princess.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

In the same vein as books like Vashti Harrison's Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History and Chelsea Clinton's She Persisted, Chase Your Dreams Little Princess is a showcase of accomplished Indian women from a wide variety of fields. Each section is introduced with a list of names, and then the subsequent pages feature an illustration of the woman and what she did.

Unlike the other books I mentioned, the information in Chase Your Dreams Little Princess is quite sparse, amounting to only one sentence for each woman. It's a good place to start, but I would've liked some more biographical information.

The illustrations are... odd. They almost look like they were traced over photos, and some of them are cut off in strange places. (Weightlifter Karnam Malleswari, for example, is depicted as having no feet. When there is an actual amputee listed elsewhere in the book, readers could be forgiven for being confused.)

I'm also not sure why Mother Teresa is listed in the book. She's Albanian. (Nikki Haley, the American politician, is also included, so I assumed that the book was showcasing women of Indian heritage... not simply women who lived in India.)

Overall, I'm not super impressed, but I do think the book fills a void. This is by no means as complete as some similar books on the market, though; it's tough to be truly inspired by someone when their story is condensed to a single sentence.

Premise: 4/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 3/5
Illustrations: 2/5
Originality: 3/5

Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall: 2.67 out of 5