Nancy Bess Had a Dress

K-Gr 3–The era is the 1930s, and Nancy Bess and her mom (both white) are in need of more flour for all the baking they do. While at the store, Nancy gets to pick out the next flour sack. There are more than a dozen different colors and patterns to choose from, and Nancy selects navy blue with a daisy pattern. Once the flour is used, the empty fabric flour sack is repurposed to make a beautiful dress that Nancy proudly wears to school and Sunday outings. As she grows, the flour sack fabric is repurposed again and again until all that remains is a tiny square that is used for something extra special at the end of the story. Full-color illustrations fill the majority of every page and depict a happy little red-headed little girl who bustles about the pages. Hawkins’s digital drawings are done with pencil line and watercolor. Although the tale is centered in the Depression era of the last century, its points about resourcefulness will not be lost on readers.