I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. Cute book about an elephant and creatures she thinks up. Might be a little over the heads of some kids, though.

This book is perfect for children of any and all genders. "Claudia's Dream" tackles the topic of gender stereotypes in a way that is fun and easy for children to understand. Claudia meets all kinds of powerful and magical creatures and she assumes that the creatures are male. She is surprised that these strong and amazing creatures are girls just like her. This book shows that girls can do anything just as well as boys can. It shows that girl power is something even little ones should be learning about and appreciating. I highly recommend this book to all the little ones out there.

Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

This book is supposed to help break the habit of sexualizing nonsexual things. Like how a dragon isn’t always male or a unicorn isn’t always female etc. They have just been portrayed that way in modern media. The author does this by saying if a one thing is Miss or Mrs. or Mrs. but never actually explains what that means. Sometimes it’s Mr. but once again what does that mean? You’ll have one animal saying hello to another and another animal going “oh but I’m not a”, “but I am a”, and there is no explanation. There’s also no representation of nonbinary. So overall I think this is a nice try not quite there.

What a lovely story. The illustrations are super cute and the colors are vibrant. The themes of female empowerment are great and I think that it will encourage children to be more open-minded. Overall a great read!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

This book was really good and I liked all the characters. It’s a great, fast and enjoyable read. I liked the twist on all the characters, but it did get a bit repetitive. This book would be great for a school classroom, home or library.

The pictures that went with the book were simple, but well done. Also the characters themselves were super cute.

Overall, I would read more by this author.

This is a cute picture book about an elephant who encounters several fantasy characters in her dream such as a genie and a dinosaur. As she meets each of these creatures she mistakenly assumes they are male and is corrected each time. It turns out all of these characters she would have previously considered using male dominant gender stereotypes are actually females! At the end of the story she decides to rename her toy unicorn to change its gender identity.

I like that this book looks at gender as something that can't be assumed or set in stone. I think that without pushing boundaries too far we can give children a nudge in the direction that gender norms are not necessarily correct. It also brings awareness to the fact that many fantasy characters in stories are male. I'm not sure that this book alone can teach about LGBTQ and gender terminology or values and understandings, but I do think that for a simple story book about an elephant meeting interesting creatures in her dreams, adding in this element of gender is a positive opening for conversations and deeper thoughts about our own assumptions and prejudices. I would recommend this book for parents and teachers of children in the 4-9 age range. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book!

I received this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was a book all about girl power and how most depictions of things (dragon, robot, etc) are male depictions. I like the idea that everything in the book can be female as well. It felt forced to me in the story, like yes, tbr majority of these things are usually male but they can be female so it felt a bit like a fuss but I appreciate the exposure and reminder. Great to read to kids.

A cute tale of an elephant who meets a genie and continues dreaming of adventures where the character is typically a boy is actually a girl!

I enjoyed this because it shows that things that may be categorized as “boy” things don’t have to be exclusive to boys! Anyone can enjoy it.