Vashti is a young girl who thinks she can't draw. When her art teacher sees her blank paper, she makes a little joke ("Ah! A polar bear in a snowstorm."). Vashti gets frustrated, jabbing at the paper with her marker to make one tiny dot in the center. Her teacher looks at the dot and simply says, "Sign it." - as if Vashti were a real, serious artist! The next day Vashti sees her dot framed and hung on the classroom wall. Her teacher's simple gesture not only encourages Vashti to draw more and more dots, it helps her to really be creative, to believe that she can do anything. Like the child in The Dot, author Peter Reynolds was encouraged by one of his teachers to keep doodling and draw more. The result? Reynolds grew up to become an illustrator (he did the artwork for the popular Judy Moody books by Megan McDonald) and a film animator. Any teacher, parents or grandparents who has posted a child's artwork on the wall (and I am one of them) will be able to relate. With his book The Dot (and its sequel called Ish), Reynolds has written a simple, clever, and wonderfully inspiring story.
For another picture book that inspires children to believe and dream big, try Salt in His Shoes: Michael Jordan in Pursuit of a Dream by Delores Jordan (see link below).