Katherine Johnson calculated -- by hand -- the flight trajectories for a number of historic missions, including the Apollo 11 flight to the Moon in 1969.

When President Barack Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Katherine Johnson in 2015, few people had even heard her name — but thanks to the smash success of the book Hidden Figures and its movie adaptation, this groundbreaking mathematician has become an inspiration for girls everywhere! Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top picks of books about the love between girls and their grandparents.

Many Mighty Girls know how special a relationship with grandparents can be: from special treats to family traditions, grandparents can offer a unique family connection to girls of all ages. And while these relationships can't always be physically close — and sometimes face obstacles, from different languages to a different perspective on the world — grandparents play an important role in the lives of many Mighty Girls. Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top picks of picture books about trailblazing girls and women throughout history.

If you flip through a typical history book, you might think, as historian Gerda Lerner once wrote, that "ostensibly one-half the human race is doing everything significant and the other half doesn’t exist." Far too often, women's contributions have been neglected in history books and school curriculums — fortunately, there are growing numbers of wonderful books being published for young readers about girls and women who made their mark on history. And, there's no better time to share these stories and make sure that the next generation — girls and boys alike — appreciates the important and diverse roles that women have played in history! Continue reading → Continue reading

From Wi-Fi to Kevlar: Twenty Female Inventors Who Changed the World!

Around the world and across history, innovative women have imagined, developed, tested, and perfected their creations, and yet most of us would be hard pressed to name even a single woman inventor. In fact, women inventors are behind many of the products and technologies used every day! From life rafts to disposable diapers to rocket fuel, women have invented amazing things — but they're also responsible for some of the things we use for day to day life. In fact, if you use GPS on your cell phone, turn on windshield wipers when you drive in the rain, or eat a chocolate chip cookie, you can thank the woman behind them! Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top picks of children's books about real-life women of science and fictional stories about girls who love science!

We don't always think about it, but every child is a scientist! From the moment she pushes a spoon off her high chair to see what happens or starts asking, "why?" to everything, she's started on a long and exciting lifetime of discovery. As time goes on, though, kids can be discouraged from this natural interest and come to believe that science is too complicated for kids -- so it's especially important to nurture that spirit of curiosity from a young age! Continue reading → Continue reading

"More often than not, bright girls believe that their abilities are innate and unchangeable."

Parents of bright girls are often shocked to discover that their daughters can be quick to assume that they can't succeed at something new and challenging. "In my experience, smart and talented [girls and women] rarely realize that one of the toughest hurdles they'll have to overcome to be successful lies within. We judge our own abilities not only more harshly, but fundamentally differently, than men do," writes psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson, the author of Nine Things Successful People Do Differently. "At the 5^th grade level, girls routinely outperform boys in every subject, including math and science... [but] bright girls [are] much quicker to doubt their ability, to lose confidence, and to become less effective learners as a result." By understanding why bright girls question their capabilities, parents can find more effective ways to support their daughters, building their resilience and confidence so they can take on the world. Continue reading → Continue reading

The best books for kids, teens, and adults about women who dared to fly!

From the earliest days of aviation, women have played a role — but few people know the stories of the daring women who opened the throttles, pulled back on the stick, and soared into history! Even when a name like Amelia Earhart or Bessie Coleman comes to mind, many kids don't know exactly how they made history, and few of them have heard of other groundbreaking women like Sophie Blanchard or Jerrie Mock. So it's time to celebrate these women who founds ways to take flight, even when the world told them they were reaching too high. Continue reading → Continue reading

The top books and films for children and adults about the 72-year fight for women's suffrage in the United States.

For children today, it's hard to imagine a time when women couldn't vote; realizing that they've had that right for only just over 100 years is astounding. It's equally shocking when they learn that women had to fight for 72 years before the 19th Amendment — which stated that no citizen could be denied the right to vote on account of sex — became law. So it's imperative that we teach today's children about the struggle for women's suffrage, not only to honor the dedication and sacrifices of the women who led the Women's Suffrage Movement, but also to ensure that future generations don't take the right to vote for granted. Continue reading → Continue reading

The Apollo 11 moon landing nearly ended in failure -- until Margaret Hamilton's flight software saved the day.

In this iconic photograph, pioneering computer scientist Margaret Hamilton stands next to the computer code that she and her team wrote to guide the Apollo spacecraft to the moon! Hamilton was the lead software designer for NASA’s Apollo program, and her forward thinking saved the 1969 Apollo 11 mission when the flight software she designed prevented a last-minute abort of the famous landing which brought the first humans to the Moon. Over the course of her career, Hamilton developed the concepts of asynchronous software, priority scheduling, and Human-in-the-loop decision capability, which became the foundation of modern software design. She also fought for programming to be given the respect it deserved, coining the term "software engineering" ; after all, as her work showed, software could make the difference between failure and a groundbreaking success. Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top picks of empathy-building picture books for kids!

Small acts of kindness happen around us every day — and anyone, no matter how young, can help make the world a better place through their thoughtful actions. In fact, when children are encouraged to see things from another's point of view, and shown how their actions can help lift others up, they are often the most compassionate of all. So if you want a more empathetic world in the future, the best way to achieve it is by teaching our kids how much you value being kind! Continue reading → Continue reading