Like lots of little girls, 7-year-old Morgan Taylor went by the name "Princess" to her father. But over time, she got the message that the rest of the world didn't view her that way.
"I love it when you call me a princess but I know I am not really a real one," Morgan told her dad at the time, as she recalled on the Today show. "Real princesses were vanilla and I can't really be a princess."
The reason she got this idea is sad but not surprising: because she is Black. The only Black movie princess she'd ever seen was Tiana from The Princess and the Frog, and she spends most of the movie as a frog.
After some research, though, Taylor and her father Todd realized there were plenty of princesses of color with stories kids would like to hear, like Princess Elizabeth of Toro and Ghana's King Peggy. So, they put together the book Daddy's Little Princess, which features a girl based on Taylor meeting all sorts of princesses and queens of color and learning about them. By the end, she realizes she can be a princess after all.
It's not your typical fairy tale, but it does have a happy ending — and an important message, at that.
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