March is Women’s History Month, a perfect time to pick up inspiring books about women and girls accomplishing amazing and unexpected things.
This list features females from around the globe who train eagles and horses, dream up infamous monsters, kayak the Amazon, fight for reproductive rights, protect water and learn to not be perfect.
Some of our Women’s History Month book picks are about fictional females, such as Akissi, a fast-talking mischief-maker from the Ivory Coast. Others feature historical figures, such as Mary Edwards Walker, a Civil War physician who wore what she wanted. Still other titles walk the line between fact and fiction, such as a darkly illustrated book in verse about Mary Shelley or the reimaging of a Muslim woman from a Lord Byron poem. Nearly all of them tell the story of how women and girls have crashed through gender barriers to live the life they were meant to.
This is professional Indigenous dancer Ria Thundercloud debut picture book. In it, she tells the true story of her path to dance and how it helped her take pride in her Native American heritage. She learned many types of dance throughout her career, but found that her native dance made her feel the most grounded. The beautiful illustrations convey movement and help tell this beautiful and inspiring story.
“A is for Aretha” by by Leslie Kwan, illustrated by Rachelle Baker
It’s never too early to start learning about music history, from A to Z! This board book for the littlest audiences highlights 26 Black women in music and tells about the contributions they made to music and to society. Kids will love the colorful illustrations, and everyone will love learning about some incredible women.
As a child, Abby never wanted to be left out of any competition, especially soccer. This fun and engaging story follows Abby through both successes and setbacks, because while even pro athletes miss goals, face losses and can get injured, determined Abby has always been tougher than her toughest challenge.
This beautifully illustrated picture-book biography of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the woman who invented rock and roll, tells an inspiring story of music, community and a drive to succeed. Watch little Rosetta dance around her home to her mother’s music, and be given the chance to make music all of her own. Rosetta’s dreams become reality in this inspiring story that will encourage your children to pursue their own goals and introduce them to a pioneering Black artist whose contribution to music history is only now being discovered.
With their yellow car, tiny cat and trunk of very useful things, two smiling women set out from New York City to tour the country and spread the message that women deserve the right to vote. Alice and Nell attended parties, got stuck in icy streams, went to all-yellow lunches and got lost in Arizona. They returned home with a full-grown cat to a warm welcome.
Featuring delightful illustrations, this book is a joyful adventure tale. It’s a fun book to read out loud to little ones, who will enjoy finding the cat on each page. Several pages of back matter will help answer questions about the funny-looking car, the strange idea that women shouldn’t vote and queries about how the book was researched.
Mamie Johnson always loved playing baseball, and when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, she hoped to play, too. However, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League wasn’t ready to give African American players like her an opportunity.
But Mamie chased her dream anyway. At age 19, the 5-foot-4-inch pitcher earned a spot playing in the mostly male Negro Leagues. With the Indianapolis Clowns, she struck out batters at Comiskey Park and Yankee Stadium. After three seasons on the field, Mamie, the first female pitcher in professional baseball history, returned home. She raised a son, had a successful nursing career, and continued playing and coaching baseball for the rest of her life.
The imaginative pink-and-blue art is the real star of this short and sweet book about Mary Edwards Walker. Although there is a blurb about the Civil War surgeon at the end of the book, the story is set in Mary’s childhood, when she decides to wear pants to school.
Although crowds questioned her and picket signs taunted her, Mary defended herself and her decision, saying, “I don’t wear men’s clothes, I wear my own clothes.”
The important thing about Margaret Wise Brown is that she wrote books — even though her books (including “The Runaway Bunny” and “Goodnight Moon”) were not recommended by the children’s librarian at the New York Public Library. But Margaret also fell in love with a woman called Michael and a man named Pebble. She spent her first fortune on flowers, skinned her rabbits and swam naked in cold water. “There are people who will say a story like this doesn’t belong in a children’s book,” writes author Barnett, “but it happened.”
This picture book is an anthem for women and girls who want to live their own weird, beautiful lives, doing all the nonsensical and important things that might just make them happy.
“In Ojibwe culture, women are the protectors of the water and men are the protectors of the fire,” author Carole Lindstrom explains in her author’s note. In her lyrical tale, a young girl rallies her people together to stand up against the black snake (drawn as an oil pipeline with a snake head) to protect the water, land and Earth. The final scene is of people gathered in protest, complete with “No DAPL” and “Stand with Standing Rock” signs.
Winner of the 2021 Caldecott Medal award, this book is gorgeously illustrated. Each page is luscious and vibrant, celebrating the Earth with color, just as the text celebrates it with words.
Other Women’s History Month picture books to check out:
After moving across the county, thirteen-year-old Natalie auditions for her school’s play and overcomes her insecurities about performing in a wheelchair. The author, Ali Stroker, made history as the first person in a wheelchair to appear on Broadway and win a Tony Award. Get ready to be inspired!
This beautifully written novel tells the story of three girls in three different time periods as they grow up to become groundbreaking scientists. Maria Merian discovered the truth about metamorphosis; Mary Anning discovered fossils that changed our understanding of the past; and Maria Mitchell discovered a new comet. Celebrate the joy of discovery with this compelling book.
This fictionalized life story of activist Dr. Betty Shabazz (Malcom X’s wife) is inspired by her real experiences and told by her daughter (author Ilyasah Shabazz) and novelist Renée Watson. As a child in Detroit in 1945, Betty didn’t feel quite at home. Betty finds confidence and purpose in volunteering and grows into American civil rights icon she is remembered as.
In her illustrated memoir, Helen Skelton recounts her wild adventures around the world. She’s biked across the South Pole, run an ultramarathon across the Namib Desert, kayaked down the Amazon and walked along a high wire between the two towers of Battersea Power Station.
For each adventure, Skelton describes her training and adventure with illustrated gear lists, maps, photographs and her first-person account of how she felt on each stage of the journey. She concludes each chapter by suggesting “wild adventure” activities for readers, such as slacklining, hill running, paddleboarding or organizing epic snowball fights.
The first in a trio of tales about Akissi, this book is about a spunky girl who lives on the Ivory Coast with her monkey, Boubou, know-it-all brother Fofana and the rest of her family. In this comic-style graphic novel, Akissi kicks footballs over walls, gets bitten by a snake in the cassava fields (don’t worry — Grandma Nan saves her), hosts movie nights at her house when she thinks Dad is at work, and does her best to avoid teachers and dentists.
The stories and settings from modern-day Africa are refreshingly different from most books on the market, which tend to be set in the United States or Europe. Akissi’s relatable humor and the sticky situations she finds herself in will have kids howling with laughter.
Edie has always known her mother was adopted, but when she finds a mysterious box containing letters from her biological grandmother, she is desperate to learn the whole story. Between trips to Golden Gardens, the Tulalip Reservation, Pike Place Market and Indianola, Edie learns the story of her family and the importance of the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, legislation enacted too late to help her family.
Pulling from her own family’s experiences, author Christine Day writes beautifully about universal woes of adolescence — getting braces, losing best friends — alongside the complexities of grasping hold of a heritage that so many have tried to erase.
Only men train eagles in Aisulu’s Kazakh community. But when her brother is rushed to an expensive hospital in Ulaanbaatar, 12-year-old Aisulu eyes the prize money at the Eagle Festival. She sets her sights on winning in order to save her brother and keep her family from having to abandon their nomadic life and the mountains where they’ve always lived.
Sometimes defying gender norms and sometimes existing within them, Aisulu trains her baby eagle, learns to live with her extended family, and carves out new places for herself and the women who will come after her.
J. Anderson Coats often writes about girls who slip around gender norms to make a better life for themselves. “The Night Ride” is no exception. Set in a nebulous past in the fictional kingdom of Mael Dunn, the story begins when Sonnia finagles a job caring for horses at the racetrack. Although she’s a poor girl from the lanes, she dreams of saving up to buy Ricochet, the horse she’s loved for years.
But life at the racetrack is full of hard lessons and choices. Rent is more than expected, girls are shut out of the jockey house, and her family back home needs money. Participating in the dangerous and illegal night ride might be Sonnia’s only shot at earning enough money to help her family and buy Ricochet.
Other middle-grade books to check out during Women’s History Month:
This award-winning book tells the story of Clara Lemlich, a young woman who emigrated from Russia to New York at the turn of the twentieth century and fought for equal rights. Clara worked in the factories of Manhattan’s Lower East Side and refused to accept substandard work conditions. She was instrumental in organizing and inspiring the famous Uprising of the 20,000. This book is written in verse and reads like poetry; a beautiful way to tell such an inspiring story.
In the male dominated word of rock climbing, Lynn Hill is one of the best in the world. She has done climbs that no one else (of any gender) has even been able to repeat. This book is an engaging telling of her life story, including her near-fatal 80-foot fall, her youth as a stunt artist for Hollywood, and the tragedies and triumphs of her life in the vertical world. If you’ve got a fan of adventure or sports in your house, this book should be on their list
Mary Shelley’s storied life defies conventional biographies. The acclaimed 19th-century author left home as a pregnant teenager. She had family and romantic relationships that define the word “complicated.” And she created one of the most iconic and disturbing monsters in modern history.
Fittingly, this is no conventional biography. Lita Judge tells Shelley’s story in free verse over the top of dark, gorgeous and angsty illustrations. Grief, anger, pain, passion, art and literary genius adorn every page.
Students are often desperate to debate abortion and contraception in high school, but many teachers shy away from, or outright ban, such subjects in the classroom, fearing community pushback. This book is a perfect resource for teens interested in the legal and social twists that the fight for reproductive rights has taken. In the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned, it is more important than ever to understand this history.
Written by Karen Blumenthal, a financial journalist turned YA author, the book takes a deep and fascinating look at the historical causes and conflicts of reproductive rights from multiple angles. While the author clearly supports abortion rights, opposing viewpoints are not vilified. This is an important and necessary book that will likely become increasingly relevant in the months and years to come.
Julia’s story begins at her sister’s funeral. Even in death, her sister Olga is unstylish.
Olga had always been the perfect Mexican daughter: She sat at home with her parents, cooked, cleaned and attended prayer groups with Amá. Julia, to the eternal consternation of her parents, is the opposite.
As Julia navigates her grief and depression, balances family pressures and contemplates her future, she is confronted with a mystery. Olga had been hiding something from everyone. Between stealthy trips to Olga’s room, a much-needed respite in Mexico and bus rides to Evanston, Julia digs through Olga’s past and learns that nobody is as perfect as they seem.
Scooping up all the big literary awards (National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the Stonewall Medal Award, a Printz Honor), “Last Night at the Telegraph Club” very much earns the hype. The 17-year-old Lily falls in love with Kath and discovers the lesbian nightlife scene that is beginning to thrive in San Francisco. But it’s the height of the Red Scare, Lily’s family is Chinese, and her father’s loyalties are in question. Coming out seems impossible.
The writing is gorgeous, layering foggy San Francisco scenes, Chinese customs and historical details into the plot. The slowly burning romance is beautifully written. Know that sexuality and sensuality are major themes in the novel.
On her yearly summer holiday in Paris, 17-year-old Khayyam is on two missions. The budding art historian’s first task is to investigate the mysterious Leila in Lord Byron’s epic poem. The other is to detangle her own love life, navigating interactions with her possible-ex-boyfriend at home and the charming Alexandre in Paris.
Intertwined with this contemporary tale is Leila’s 19th-century story. In her author’s note, Samira Ahmed points out, “When we say history is written by the victors, we mean history is written by the patriarchy.” Unlike Lord Byron, both Ahmed and her fictional Khayyam give the historical Leila a voice.
Check out Rise: A Feminist Book Project for Ages 0–18. Part of the Feminist Task Force and the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association, the website presents an annual booklist of the best feminist books for young readers.
Jenna Vandenberg is a Seattle-based high school teacher, writer, runner and mom of two girls. Her service on a national book review committee keeps her happily surrounded with stories.
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