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More often than not children's books feature boys as the main characters. But, fortunately, more books are coming out each year that highlight girls.
Kristian Wilson on Bustle.com lists fifty feminist books for children, including: The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch You Forgot Your Skirt, Amelia Bloomer! by Shana Corey Princess Grace by Mary Hoffman Me . . . Jane by Patrick McDonnell The Ballad of the Pirate Queens by Jane Yolen A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty
Visit Kristian Wilson's article 50 Feminist Book Gifts For Your Nieces and Nephews This Holiday Season for her complete list of contemporary and classic works that make great reading for the girls in your life. And don't take the headline literally. Of course, these books aren't just for your nieces and nephews and the holiday season. They make great gifts for any child at any time of year.
What are you favorite feminist children's books? Please share your comments below.
Hope you enjoyed this post! To be notified of future updates, use the subscription options on the right side bar.
0 Comments on Fifty Feminist Picture Books to Inspire Girls as of 1/1/1900
What books do you remember most fondly from childhood?
Over at the nostalgia section of Reddit, readers have been sharing the books that make them feel most nostalgic.
To help our readers rediscover these childhood classics, we’ve linked to free samples of the 15 Most Nostalgic Books below–ranked in order by the books’ popularity among Reddit readers.
#86 The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch (1980)
23 points
This is deeply satisfying to the children I read it to, and to me as an adult as well. She’s clever, she’s brave and she refuses to subordinate herself. The well placed use of the word “bum” adds a nice bit of levity to the ending. – Emily Myhr
#70 last time.
Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children’s Literature referred to The Paper Bag Princess as a “feminist fairy tale” (prefigured by The Practical Princess by Jay Williams, actually). There are many books that join it in this respect. The Princess Knight by Cornelia Funke, The Princess Who Stood on Her Own Two Feet, etc. But in terms of sheer love… sheer devotion of the readership… I don’t think anyone holds a candle to this tale. It has even done so well that there was a 25th anniversary edition telling “the story behind the story.”
Of the various descriptions I’ve seen of the plot, Amazon.com probably summed it up best: “Elizabeth, a beautiful princess, lives in a castle and wears fancy clothes. Just when she is about to marry Prince Ronald, a dragon smashes her castle, burns her clothes with his fiery breath, and prince-naps her dear Ronald. Undaunted and presumably unclad, she dons a large paper bag and sets off to find the dragon and her cherished prince. Once she’s tracked down the rascally reptile, she flatters him into performing all sorts of dragonly stunts that eventually exhaust him, allowing her to rescue Prince Ronald. But what does Prince Not-So-Charming say when he sees her? “You smell like ashes, your hair is all tangled and you are wearing a dirty old paper bag. Come back when you are dressed like a real princess.” (At least he has the courtesy not to mention that the princess’s crown resembles a dying sea anemone.) In any case, let’s just say that Princess Elizabeth and Prince Ronald do not, under any circumstances, live happily ever after.”
I just like the “dying sea anemone” line.
Though Mr. Munsch has written countless picture books for kids, his two best known works are this and Love You Forever (and did that book make this list? Only time will tell . . . )
Why can’t I find The Princess Who Stood on her Own Two Feet at the NYPL OR on Amazon?!?
Elizabeth Bird said, on 5/18/2012 9:50:00 AM
Oh that book has LONG been out of print, I’m afraid. Your best bet is to grab a copy of Phil Nel’s Tales for Little Rebels where he includes the full text and some of the pictures. Unless a miracle happens that book will ne’er see the light of day. Too bad about not being on Amazon. Try Alibris maybe?
Elle Librarian said, on 5/18/2012 10:04:00 AM
This one was on my top 10, so obviously I’m over-joyed to see it make the list. I am young enough that this book was popular when I was a child. And now my six-year-old niece is going through a phase where she will just sit and read this book over and over and over and over! Thankfully, it is also one of the books featured on Tumblebooks (though it does part ways in some respects with the original), so my niece can also listen to it for hours if she’d like!
Since writing my first post about My Princess Boy, I got to thinking about boys who wear pink, and other non-traditional gender roles. Was there a place for them in children’s books before this news story? Turns out, there was, and librarians and readers have been making lists for ages! Here’s my own list, with some personal favorites for boys and girls:
(Note: I also went to the bookstore and read My Princess Boy. My two cents? I’m not a fan of an illustration style with faceless figures, though I understand the attempt to be “universal” and androgynous, and I know others that liked it. Ultimately, though, I respect the point of the story, and that’s satisfying enough for me!)
Little Women – by Louisa May Alcott / There’s no contest: Louisa May Alcott, in the guise of her autobiographical protagonist, Jo March, is the original tomboy. She’s independent, stubborn, and refuses to accept the feminine societal norms that eat up the rest of her sisters’ time and energy. Women for generations have idolized the way she bravely cuts off her hair (her one beauty!), but fans were a little less content with her refusal to marry Laurie… or anyone at all. In fact, Alcott later wrote,
“Jo should have remained a literary spinster, but so many enthusiastic young ladies wrote to me clamorously demanding that she should marry Laurie, or somebody, that I didn’t dare refuse and out of perversity went and made a funny match for her”.
Listen to a great story about Jo March on NPR, here.
Hattie Big Sky – by Kirby Lawson / There are many wonderful contemporary novels featuring spunky historical heroines, but my favorite is “the one about the girl homesteader”, aka. Hattie Big Sky. Hattie is a 16-year-old orphan who winds up with a piece of land in rural Montana, and has to successfully farm it in less than a year to stay. I love Hattie’s unique voice and the community that she creates for herself within a harsh setting… she can’t help but have guts to stick through her situation!
What am I reading now? The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by K. DiCamillo
On Thursday, October 28, 2010, Scholastic launched You Are What You Read, a new social networking site for readers. The main focus of You Are What You Read is to both “celebrate those books that helped us discover who we are and who we can become.”
Users can log on through existing social media accounts, namely Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Google, LinkedIn and MySpace. Once users have logged on they have the chance to not only share the five books that made a difference in their lives but also connect with readers around the world through shared “Bookprints.” Daniel Radcliffe, Taylor Swift and Venus Williams are just a few of the more than 130 “Names You Know” who have shared their Bookprints.
In addition, You Are What You Read provides users with the opportunity to:
Discover new books through an interactive web that shows how users’ Bookprints are connected
Find and connect with users across generations and from around the world to see the books in their Bookprints
Compare their Bookprints to those of the participating “Names You Know,” and find out if they share a book in their Bookprint with famous athletes, award-winning entertainers, world-renowned scientists or iconic business leaders
“Favorite” other books they like and check out what similar users enjoy reading
See which books have been chosen as Favorites from around the world
Share a book in the real word through Pass It On, which encourages users to give a favorite book to a family member, a friend or even a complete stranger
In the spirit of You Are What You Read and to get the ball rolling even further, here’s my Bookprint:
My bookprint is: Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume, The Hitchhikers Galaxy by Douglas Adams, Trixie Belden and the Mysterious Visitor by Julie Campbell, Stardust by Neil Gaiman and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. I love the Bookprint idea! I wrote about this too! (http://princessdot.wordpress.com)
Inderjit Deogun said, on 11/11/2010 7:22:00 AM
princessdot, thanks for sharing! I, too, love the Bookprint idea. Scholastic has definitely struck gold once again.
I have a weakness for cute things. Especially girly cute things. I don’t remember my first exposure to Sanrio’s Hello Kitty, but I know it was love at first sight--not have-Hello Kitty-officiate-at-my-wedding-like-they-do-in-Japan love, but a deep-seated affection nonetheless. In the late ‘70s, when I was eleven, our local strip mall got a kiosk-sized storefront dedicated to things Sanrio. I almost went into diabetic shock from the sweet adorableness of every single thing in the shop. There were pencils, erasers, socks, earrings, keychains, and all manner of other precious wee things in the shape of or patterned with that cute red-bowed feline or her friends. Since I started at nine earning my own money housecleaning and babysitting, I was fortunate enough to make a few select purchases. And my favorite item was a see-through, plastic Hello Kitty purse. I was so excited to take it to school that I didn’t consider what the reaction would be. Here’s how the math went: No one else had a plastic purse, I didn’t get whatever gene makes a person cool enough to pull off starting a trend, and mocking ensued. It actually still stings a little after three decades. But, a year later, one of the girls who did get that elusive popularity gene started carrying a plastic purse and then they were everywhere. I still don’t get it. In Robert Munsch’s Stephanie’s Ponytail, Stephanie has the opposite problem--everyone copies everything she does when she wants to be unique. Maybe our therapists are friends. http://www.amazon.com/Stephanies-Ponytail-Classic-Munsch-Robert/dp/1550374842 http://www.indiana.edu/~reading/ieo/bibs/munsch.html
Having small people who still wear diapers is a bummer--buying diapers, running out of diapers, regretting leaving the bag open so the wipes dry out, stinking up the house, adding to the landfills or using water for washing, and longing for the day diapers are done. The problem with potty training (once it’s done, of course) is realizing you didn’t appreciate the convenience of diapers when you had the chance. Anyone who has ever gone anywhere with a newly toilet-trained small person knows that needing to pee, being willing to pee, and having the opportunity to pee are rarely all in the same place at the same time. I had one who never met a public bathroom she didn’t want to visit. I had one who held dry pants hostage by “forgetting” to go pee-pee in the potty chair if she wanted something she didn’t get. I had one whose “Wolverine” costume had to turn into a flannel shirt and jeans “Logan” costume when he (that narrows it down, doesn’t it?) didn’t quite make it in time. I also threw perfectly good panties away on a trip to Disneyland because I wasn’t willing to swish them in the Happiest Toilet On Earth. And now I have one who wears her princessy pink potty-chair on her head. Sometimes diapers look really nice in hindsight. In Robert Munsch’s I Have To Go!, Andrew makes everyone crazy until he and Grandpa figure the potty thing out. When you gotta go, you gotta go.
If you haven’t already guessed it, I read a lot. Some books have been good, some have been great and a few have been extraordinary. While each book made its impact, however big or small, it’s the extraordinary books that left me pondering a single question: How did the author come up with this? Here’s the answer to a couple of my favourites:
In the documentary Harry Potter and Me, J.K. Rowling says that the idea for the Harry Potter series “came out of nowhere.” Take a look:
I ask you this: Does knowing this make the Harry Potter series all the more magical?
Robert Munsch, author of Love You Forever, recalls the following about the song ”I’ll love you forever,”
I made that up after my wife and I had two babies born dead. The song was my song to my dead babies. For a long time I had it in my head and I couldn’t even sing it because every time I tried to sing it I cried. It was very strange having a song in my head that I couldn’t sing.
I ask: Does knowing this make Love You Forever all the more poignant?
In the end, does the story behind the story matter, of course it does.
0 Comments on The Story Behind the Story as of 1/1/1900
Canadian families have a chance to win a day with picture book author Robert Munsch on family Literacy Day, Jan. 17, through the Munsch at Home contest run by ABC Canada Literacy Foundation.
The family with the most creative Family Literacy Day event will win a host a party for their friends and family with Robert Munsch. Robert Munsch will also give a public reading at the winner’s local library.
The contest is part of national celebrations for Family Literacy Day, to encourage Canadians to participate in Family Literacy Day and to spend at least 15 minutes a day enjoying a learning activity (hopefully reading).
When I received this photo of one of my favorite little friends, Mia, I knew I had a feature for my blog. What fun hair Mia has!
Many children's authors have enjoyed celebrating hair--proving that a fertile imagination combined with winning words and great illustrations pave the way for picture book success. Listed below are a few hair-raising PB's...
During our common planning time today, my colleagues and I brainstormed a list of texts we’re going to have students select from for their literary essays. Many people think that kids should pick whatever book they’re reading, I’ve come to believe that having children select from a pre-selected set of short texts is better. [...]
Across the country, libraries, schools, community centres, arts centres, and homes — maybe even your home — will be hosting events and reading children’s books. It’s a great excuse to read a book with your child, if you need one.
On this edition of Just One More Book, Mark speaks with Margaret Eaton, President of the ABC Canada Literacy Foundation about literacy and this year’s Family Literacy Day.
Mark refers in this interview to the following quote from a recent post on Jen Robinson’s Book Page. Jen wrote last January, in an article about a talk that Jen heard by read-aloud advocate Jim Trelease, that:
“He (Trelease) suggested that we need some sort of national campaignto inform people all over the country of the importance of exposing their kids to more words every day, and encouraging them to enjoy reading. He gave an analogy to the campaign that was used to successfully cut the incidence of smoking in this country by 50% over 40 years, a combination of informing people, scaring people, and insulting people, and thinks that we need to try something similar in American homes re: reading.”
More statistics and literacy tidbits referenced by Mark in this interview can be found here:
See this cute little sloth over to the right? Oh, how I wish I could laze about like he does. See how he's smiling? That's because he's relaxed and he doesn't have four inboxes, reviews to write, expense reports to file, prescriptions to order and pick up, etc.
And...he doesn't have to go to the zoo tomorrow with a kindergarten class. Nope, that would be me. It's funny...you think that when all your kids are finally in school, life will be a breeze. And it is, comparatively speaking, until MAY. Then it's concert this, and field trip that, special lunches this, assemblies that. I'll get more done with them home at this point. Two more days.
I'll be back in tomorrow evening with a review of Justine Larbalestier's Magic or Madness trilogy. In the meantime, wish me luck. Apologies for this week's atrocious blogging. ======================= OT: Bravo's Shear Genius is now over and it was a delightful truffle while it lasted. Bring on Project Runway 4!
8 Comments on Lame Blogging: Apologies, last added: 6/1/2007
Kelly, as far as I'm concerned you need never apologise for lame Blogging - your Blogging's been a lot less lame than mine has of late. I've got a review of a trilogy half-written, but pain and a lack of sleep have prevented me from finishing it yet!
HipWriterMama said, on 5/31/2007 7:56:00 AM
Kelly, You do a great job with your posts. No excuses ever needed. Go have fun with the kindergarteners. I'd like to be a fly on the wall overhearing their conversations. Enjoy!
Christine M said, on 5/31/2007 8:08:00 AM
I feel your pain! I'm going on the fourth grade class trip tomorrow.
Brian Mandabach said, on 5/31/2007 8:09:00 AM
For a "sorry" blog, this was right on the topic of "end of the school year." School gets out early in Colorado, so I am a couple of steps ahead of you. Summtime rules. I'm eating toast and jam with my kids while I while away the morning. Wifey's mad because I haven't done the shopping yet, but I'm too busy chillin', my daughter's too busy re-reading old Potter and Warriors books, I'm reading her the Sillmarillion, and little Andy? He's too busy telling everyone about how his sister got dog poop on her pants at our picnic in the park. Oh! and I have a book to revise! Better get off the blog.
jules said, on 5/31/2007 3:06:00 PM
You're the farthest thing from a "lame blogger." You're still updating your blog, and we know you're busy. Hang in there. I haven't been able to review this week either, due to my computer issues.
zee said, on 5/31/2007 3:38:00 PM
Hey Kelly, I got a piece of chocolate yesterday that had this deep thought. "It's okay to do nothing."
Breathe deeply and repeat for eternity.
Liz in Ink said, on 5/31/2007 9:24:00 PM
Man, do I hear you. May is worse than November and December combined. The events! The awards! The parties! The fieldtrips! Sigh. Sigh. Sigh. Summertime's just around the corner...
Kelly said, on 6/1/2007 6:59:00 AM
Thanks, you guys :)
I'm glad to see I'm not alone (Liz, Chris). And, thanks, Brian for a view of the future! I can't wait.
Zee, thanks for the reminder! And, Vivian, I overheard a lot. I had a little girl with me who talked my ear off.
Michele, I hope you feel better soon! I hate that you're in pain.
I have 85 books to review, an interview to write, and four clogged inboxes, so I'm going to take the rest of the day to clean up my life. Here are some fun children's literature trivia quizzes, though, if you happen to have time on your hands.
![]({"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61zkWYota9L._SY412_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[500,414],"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61zkWYota9L._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[260,216]})
What books do you remember most fondly from childhood?
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January 27 is the 
Why can’t I find The Princess Who Stood on her Own Two Feet at the NYPL OR on Amazon?!?
Oh that book has LONG been out of print, I’m afraid. Your best bet is to grab a copy of Phil Nel’s Tales for Little Rebels where he includes the full text and some of the pictures. Unless a miracle happens that book will ne’er see the light of day. Too bad about not being on Amazon. Try Alibris maybe?
This one was on my top 10, so obviously I’m over-joyed to see it make the list. I am young enough that this book was popular when I was a child. And now my six-year-old niece is going through a phase where she will just sit and read this book over and over and over and over! Thankfully, it is also one of the books featured on Tumblebooks (though it does part ways in some respects with the original), so my niece can also listen to it for hours if she’d like!