Vas-y, Stella, Vas-y! (en Francés) - Peter Ndiwa

Stella is a nine-year-old girl in Mavumbi Village who taught herself to ride at six and now lives and breathes bicycles - servicing them in her father’s garage and coaching her friend Sam, who’s still clumsy on two wheels. She dreams of becoming an engineer. When two brothers, Cyprian and Alex, insist that girls can’t ride properly and could never beat boys, Stella calmly challenges them to a race to the bridge.

She’s closing on the lead when a passing lorry causes Sam to crash. She turns back to help him instead of winning, forfeiting the race to Cyprian. Sam’s father arrives, tends to his son, and scolds the brothers both for not stopping and for racing on a public road without helmets or knee pads. Sam demands a rematch - on a proper track, with safety gear.

Over the next two weeks Stella coaches Sam and a growing crowd of other children, boys and girls, who’ve been inspired to enter. At the rematch, Cyprian and Alex apologise for what they said, and Stella wins outright on a bike she engineered herself. Cyprian high-fives her, calls her the future’s finest engineer, and asks her to teach him bike maintenance.

This is a bilingual book in English and French.