The Best Children’s Books About Individuality

A loudly dressed penguin keeps being told he is odd — until odd is exactly what the colony needs.

A patchwork elephant paints himself ordinary gray, then discovers he preferred the colors.

A bull who prefers flowers to fighting is chosen for the arena — and stays exactly who he is.

A giraffe who cannot dance the way the jungle expects finally hears a different kind of music.

A girl hides her love of lima beans and wakes up covered in stripes — then everything else people say she is.

Stephanie keeps inventing new ponytails, and the whole class copies her — until she invents something they will not.

Wooden people stamp stars for talents and dots for flaws — until one figure learns the stickers were never the point.

In a world of identical Hueys, one knits a sweater — and everyone copies until standing out means something else.

A seagull drops orange paint on Mr. Plumbean’s roof, and he decides the whole house should match the mess.

Wilbur is the only naked mole rat who wants clothes — and the colony has opinions about that.

A punctuation mark spends his childhood among periods, trying hard to be a small quiet dot.

A crayon labeled Red keeps drawing blue — and finally stops pretending the label was right.

Oliver Button reads, draws, and dances — and refuses to quit just because the boys call him a sissy.

Rumple Buttercup has green skin, crooked teeth, and an imaginary friend — and is terrified of being seen.