Imogene's Antlers

Imogene’s Antlers

By David Small

This is one of my favorite children’s books of all time.

The story itself isn’t particularly incredible, especially in terms of narrative style or detail.

This is the story of a little girl who wakes up one morning with a huge set of antlers. While her mother is horrified, Imogene embraces her new unique feature and has fun with them, utilizing them in creative ways. This story teaches children to love what makes them different, that they cannot and should not try to hide what makes them special and one-of-a-kind. Imogene never complains and never lets her new additions stop her from being happy.

The illustrations are wonderful and give more details to the story than the narration (something about the way Small draws faces makes me laugh every single time).

At the end of the story (sorry to ruin it for those of you who have yet to finish the 26 page novel), the antlers are gone and her family rejoices- UNTIL they see that Imogene is now proudly sporting a magnificent peacock tail (a natural sign of vitality, beauty, and pride).

I read this book as a child and it made me want to stand out in a crowd rather than be like everyone else. This books tells children to be proud and to never let their differences be a burden or shameful. A great lesson for children OR adults!

The only bad thing about this book is that it always makes me sad that I don’t have antlers to stick donuts on to feed birds- oh well.