“Morris Micklewhite has a mother named Moira and a cat named Moo.” He likes Sundays because Sundays mean pancakes. And he likes Mondays because Mondays mean school, where the list of likable things is a long one, but at the top is the tangerine dress in the dress-up center. “He likes the noise the dress makes — swish, swish, swish when he walks and crinkle, crinkle, crinkle when he sits down.” He pretends not to notice when other kids make fun of him for wearing the dress or nail polish, but he can hear what they say, and every day it’s something mean. By Friday, Morris doesn’t want to go to school. He stays home, where he feels safe and loved and free to imagine a boy in a tangerine dress riding a blue elephant. On Monday, he’s ready for school again. “When he had the chance, he put on the dress that reminded him of tigers and the sun and his mother’s hair.” Lively, lyrical writing further distinguishes a picture book already notable for featuring a child who conforms to his own understanding of who he is rather than what those around him expect him to be based on gender. And in the end, Morris’s classmates don’t see a boy in a dress, they see a boy with an imagination that can take them all far. (Ages 3–8)

Morris is a little boy who loves using his imagination. He dreams about having space adventures, paints beautiful pictures and sings the loudest during circle time. But most of all, Morris loves his classroom’s dress-up center — he loves wearing the tangerine dress.

But the children in Morris’s class don’t understand. Dresses, they say, are for girls. And Morris certainly isn’t welcome in the spaceship some of his classmates are building. Astronauts, they say, don’t wear dresses.

One day when Morris feels all alone, and sick from the taunts of his classmates, his mother lets him stay home from school. Morris reads about elephants, and puts together a puzzle, and dreams of a fantastic space adventure with his cat, Moo.

Inspired by his dream, Morris paints the incredible scene he saw, and brings it with him to school. He builds his own spaceship, hangs his painting on the front of it and takes two of his classmates on an outer space adventure.

With warm, dreamy illustrations Isabelle Malenfant perfectly captures Morris’s vulnerability and the vibrancy of his imagination. This is a sweetly told story about the courage and creativity it takes to be different.