MY PAPA MY PRINCE

Four girls wait for their fathers to pick them up from ballet class in this picture book.

Four young ballet dancers with different skin tones, hair colors, and features are all dressed in their leotards and tutus in a performance studio overlooking a rainy city scene. Each is “awaiting a prince from their part of the world,” and the story shifts to the fathers as they travel from their jobs—as a fisherman, train conductor, taxi driver, and briefcase-carrying businessman. Three of the papas have journeys that dovetail: The fisherman takes the train with the conductor, and both get into the taxi driver’s cab. But the last father, after losing his umbrella to the wind, is sidetracked rescuing a dog stranded in a sinkhole. When the three papas arrive at the studio, they dance a waltz with their daughters, and the last girl feels left out and worried. The rest bring her into a group dance, but she sadly makes to leave the studio—until her father arrives at the last moment. (“And the stars lit a waltz by the sea.”) In this lively and inventive tale, Brown’s rhythmic, dance-centered rhymes focus on the rain and the waltz metaphor, allowing much of the poignant storytelling to happen in the pictures. Tabakh’s beautiful digital illustrations, completed in Procreate, appear hand-drawn, using a painterly style with vivid textures that encourage young readers to pore over the pages.

Offering graceful rhymes, this imaginative celebration of fathers and daughters dances across the page.