We receive questions quite frequently from people asking for recommendations of specific types of books or movies so we've decided to start anonymously sharing select messages in this new "Ask A Mighty Girl" feature. 

Hi A Mighty Girl,

My eight-year-old daughter is very shy and has a terrible fear of dogs and is a generally fearful person. Can you recommend any picture or chapter books about girls who overcome their fears?

She isn't the strongest independent reader right now, but I read to her all the time and she loved all the Harry Potter books and I've read her Alice in Wonderland, and The Graveyard Book by Niel Gaiman lately. But we also still read picture books. I love Pirate Girl by Cornelia Funke. I think she likes fantasy and adventure fiction best.

So I'd welcome anything that she could read herself or that I could read to her.

Thanks so much! Your site is a wonderful resource and I like your facebook postings.

All best,
Jane Continue reading → Continue reading

"One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap." – Ida B. Wells

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ida B. Wells, the courageous African-American journalist, anti-lynching crusader, women's rights activist, and civil rights pioneer. Wells was born into slavery in 1862 and freed at one year of age by President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. She became politically active in civil rights issues from a young age.

In one famous instance as a young woman in Memphis, she was ordered to give up her seat on a train to a white man and move to the smoking or "Jim Crow" car. Wells refused and was forcefully dragged from the train. She then took the unheard of action of hiring an attorney and suing the railroad; she won her case in the local court though the Tennessee Supreme Court eventually overturned it. This experience further ignited her desire to work against the injustices faced by women and people of color.

Wells became a well-known journalist and, after three friends were lynched by a mob, she launched a global anti-lynching campaign to raise awareness of the social injustice. She was one of only two African American women to sign "the call" to form the NAACP in 1909 and worked tirelessly throughout this period for women's suffrage. In the final years of her life, she became disenchanted with the nominees to the state legislature so, in 1930, she ran for the Illinois State Legislature, becoming one of the first black women to run for public office in the United States. Continue reading → Continue reading

Last week, we just celebrated A Mighty Girl's three month anniversary and added our 7,000th supporter to our Facebook community! Welcome to everyone who has joined us since our last update on our one-month anniversary – it’s been an amazing ride and we're so happy to that you've joined us on this journey.

Every so often, we like to take a moment to introduce ourselves and let you know who are the "we" behind our Facebook and blog posts. My name is Carolyn Danckaert and my husband, Aaron Smith, and I founded A Mighty Girl after years of grappling with the challenge of finding girl empowering gifts for our four young nieces. We thought that others might be experiencing the same frustration that we did with the one-dimensional nature of many of the products marketed to girls so we launched the site as a service for others equally interested in supporting and celebrating girls.

Since launching in April, the response to the site has been incredible and we've been thrilled to hear such enthusiasm for our site offerings and Facebook content. We're working hard to expand the site as quickly as we can and are continually adding new books and movies to the site and seeking out compelling content to share via our social media communities. We also have several new exciting sections in the works (yes, music is still coming - it was much more complicated to add than we anticipated so we're sorry for the delay); several of which will be unveiled in the next few weeks. Continue reading → Continue reading

This week marks the anniversary of amazing feats by three trailblazing women. On July 5, 1916, sisters Augusta and Adeline Van Buren set off on an incredible journey and began the first successful transcontinental motorcycle tour across the U.S. by two women on solo motorcycles. They rode 5,500 miles in 60 days often over unpaved roads while traveling from NYC to Tijuana, Mexico.

The entrance of the U.S. into WWI inspired the sisters' feat as they sought to prove that women could ride as well as men and were capable of serving as military dispatch riders. The women dressed in military-style leggings and leather riding breeches which were taboo at that time for women and, as a result, they were arrested several times along the way for wearing men's clothing. Yet, these two inspirational trailblazers were undaunted. As Augusta famously once stated, “Woman can if she will.” Continue reading → Continue reading