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When Eva and Rebecca offered me the opportunity to curate the Princess Awesome Book Club, I was so excited. As a children’s author for the last ten years, I’ve witnessed the profound influence books can have on young minds. I myself discovered the world in large part through books, and with a daughter of my own, I see the way she learns and envisions the world around her changing with everything she reads.
And I’m not just talking about non-fiction or “literary” books, either. My daughter is a huge fan of comic books, especially the DC Superhero Girls series by Shea Fontana, in which the female superheroes (and a few super villains) of the DC comic universe are reimagined as roommates at a superpowered high school. Can a straight arrow like Wonder Woman find common ground with a prankster like Harley Quinn? Can a bunch of kids really end up saving the day?
That’s one of the things I really love about children’s books. In their pages, kids aren’t helpless bystanders in an unknowable world—they are just young people, with the same abilities and potential as adults.
There’s a saying by A Wrinkle In Time author Madeleine L’Engle, regarding whether children’s books are a lesser medium of art: “You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”
For children have the power to make the world a better place, and they are going to use it.
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Diana Peterfreund has published more than a dozen novels for adults, teens, and kids, including the four-book Secret Society Girl series (Bantam Dell), the “killer unicorn novels” Rampantand Ascendant (Harper Teen), For Darkness Shows the Stars (a post-apocalyptic retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion), and Across a Star-Swept Sea (inspired by the classic series The Scarlet Pimpernel). Her newest series, OMEGA CITY, is a contemporary adventure novel for younger readers set in a secret bunker city somewhere under modern Maryland.
Her works have been named to the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age list, the Capitol Choices (metro DC-area) reading list, and the Texas Lonestar List, as well as having been named to Amazon’s Best Books of the Year. In addition, she’s written several critically acclaimed short stories and a variety of non-fiction essays about popular children’s literature. Diana lives outside Washington D.C., with her family.
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I’m an illustrator, surface designer and educator based in Atlanta, GA. I live with my boyfriend and our three rescue kitties, who very often make it into my art, especially the two black cats.
I feel very comfortable creating art for kids, because I'm really a kid at heart. I love cute animals and bright colors. I find it particularly satisfying to distill complex concepts into simple shapes that are stylized but easily recognizable.
Sienna Farr was one of Princess Awesome's first models, before our Kickstarter, before we were much more than a dream and a few dresses made of tee shirts and quilting material. She died in a fire that also seriously injured her mother on August 11, 2023, aged 13.
Princess Awesome is so proud to partner with Women in Aviation International to sponsor a design contest during the summer of 2023. We are looking for your awesome ideas for new clothing that features airplanes, helicopters, engineering concepts, schematics - anything that has to do with aviation.
