By Katherine Handcock, A Mighty Girl Communications Specialist

It’s been a wonderful year for Mighty Girls in literature! In 2013, we’ve seen many new releases from favorite authors, enjoyed additions to terrific Mighty Girl series, and found amazing works from first-time authors.

Now, we’re thrilled to share the over 130 new releases from 2013 that we’ve added to A Mighty Girl! And, because we know newly released books make great gifts during the holidays, we’re sharing some of our favorites in a two-part blog series to make it easy to choose a few special ones for the children in your life.

In this blog, we'll share our twenty favorite girl-empowering books for infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and early elementary school children and, in the second part, we share our favorites for tweens and teens.

Of course, this is just a small sample of the many fantastic books released in 2013. To view our growing selection, visit our special feature on 2013 Mighty Girl Books. Continue reading → Continue reading

By Katherine Handcock, A Mighty Girl Communications Specialist

“Children are born true scientists. They spontaneously experiment and experience and re-experience again. They select, combine, and test, seeking to find order in their experiences — ‘which is the mostest? which is the leastest?’ They smell, taste, bite, and touch-test for hardness, softness, springiness, roughness, smoothness, coldness, warmness: they heft, shake, punch, squeeze, push, crush, rub, and try to pull things apart.”

— R. Buckminster-Fuller

Do you remember a time when learning how the world worked was fascinating? Many of us lose that sense of wonder, even if we regain it later. But fading interest in all things science isn’t the inevitable progression of childhood! You can help your Mighty Girl maintain her love of science with a little time, effort, and some great science toys.

In this blog, we highlight a few of our favorite toys for different age groups that promote an interest in science, technology, engineering, and the natural world. You can also visit our entire selection of nearly 300 empowering STEM-oriented toys in our science / technology toy section. Continue reading → Continue reading

By Katie Quirk, Author, A Girl Called Problem

Today, Friday, October 11th, the world is celebrating the second annual Day of the Girl Child, and I couldn’t be more excited. I have a personal stake in the growing awareness that educating and empowering girls can transform whole communities — all of us do I suppose, but my dear friend and sister, Modesta, exemplifies that notion for me in a very personal way.

Modesta

Modesta Pounds Rice

I met Modesta in Tanzania in 1998. I was an American volunteer, teaching in a newly-formed university on the southern shore of Lake Victoria. Modesta was a spunky, 12-year-old girl with an infectious laugh who sold papayas and mangoes door to door. She also turned out to be the key to my survival in Tanzania.

In addition to teaching me how to speak Swahili, Modesta schooled me in village living — everything from how to carry buckets of water on my head, to how to bargain with vendors at the vegetable market, to how to rid my mattress of bedbugs. In return, I tried to do whatever I could for Modesta. I didn’t have a lot to offer — an open ear, a willingness to play with her on days when she had energy to spare after going to school, selling fruit, gathering firewood, washing her laundry by hand, cleaning dishes, carrying water…you get the picture. Continue reading → Continue reading

By Carolyn Danckaert, A Mighty Girl Founder

One of the great heroes of WWII led a secret operation to successfully smuggle 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto, saving them from almost certain death, yet few people know the name of this largely unsung hero or have heard Irena Sendler's incredible story. Born in 1910, Sendler was a Polish Catholic nurse and social worker who began aiding Jews as early as 1939 after the Germans invaded Poland. At first, she helped to create false documents for over 3,000 Jewish families and later joined the Zegota, the underground Polish resistance organization created to aid the country's Jewish population.

In 1943, Sendler became head of Zegota's children's division and used her special access to the Warsaw Ghetto, granted to Social Welfare Department employees to conduct inspections for typhus, to set up a smuggling operation. She and her colleagues began secretly transporting babies and children out of the Ghetto by hiding them in an ambulance with a false bottom or in baskets, coffins, and even potato sacks. The children were then given false identities and placed with Polish families or in orphanages. To allow the children to be reunited with any surviving relatives following the war, Sendler buried lists containing the identities and locations of the children in jars. Continue reading → Continue reading

By Katherine Handcock, A Mighty Girl Senior Research Intern

When you’re parenting a Mighty Girl, one of the top priorities is often making sure that she has confidence in herself and her abilities. After all, it’s hard to be daring, smart, inventive, creative, and all the other things we love in our Mighty Girls without being confident that you can handle what comes your way!

With that in mind, we’ve put together a list of our favorite Mighty Girl books for boosting confidence. Some are fiction, featuring characters that stand proudly facing the world, and others are guides to help your Mighty Girl find confidence in her day-to-day life. Whichever you pick, these books will have your Mighty Girl cheering, “I can do it!”

For parents who are looking for books to help their Mighty Girl overcome self-esteem struggles, check out our earlier blogs: 15 Self-Esteem Building Books for Mighty Girls and Ten Body Image Positive Books for Mighty Girls. Continue reading → Continue reading

By Lili Sandler, A Mighty Girl Senior Research Intern

If you’ve ever attended a baby shower for the mama-to-be of a baby girl, you’ve probably witnessed the overwhelmingly pink and princess-themed gifts that are, well, showered upon the guest of honor. In this day and age, the majority of women know the sex of their baby before she or he is born, and thus the heavily gendered gift-giving begins before the baby takes her or his first breath.

If you're looking for alternatives to stereotypical baby shower gifts — ones that celebrate the whole girl, even as they recognize and celebrate the joyous fact that she is, indeed, a girl — you'll find them in this selection of baby gifts perfect for any new mom or dad to share with their baby girl!

For more recommendations beyond those included in this post, you'll find many girl-empowering baby toys and gifts in A Mighty Girl's For Baby section. Continue reading → Continue reading

By Katherine Handcock, A Mighty Girl Senior Research Intern

When your Mighty Girl was young, you probably marveled at her incredible confidence: no matter what she wore, said, or did, she did it with a big grin that said, “This is who I am, like it or not!” But as kids get older, they start to be affected by the opinions of others, especially their peers. So the 3-year-old who proudly declared, “I’m the best!” can turn into a 5-year-old who says, “Nobody at school likes me!” or “I can’t do that — it’s for boys!”

Fortunately, while it’s normal for children to have bumps in the road where they question their worth, parents can do a lot to make sure that the bumps are small and that their daughters pass them quickly! By reading books about girls who face challenges to their self-esteem — either from questioning themselves, or brought on by disapproval from others — and overcome them, parents can teach their daughters that everyone struggles with self-esteem sometimes but that everyone is valuable and special in her own way. Continue reading → Continue reading

By Lili Sandler, A Mighty Girl Senior Research Intern

Amelia Earhart, the aviation pioneer, equal rights activist, and all around courageous heroine for generations of girls and women was born on this day in 1897. An icon of twentieth century bravery — but also that of mystery — Earhart is most well-known as the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and to disappear during her attempted flight around the world.

As a child, Amelia Earhart had little to no interest in airplanes, but filled her days by exploring her neighborhood with her younger sister, reading voraciously, or following and collecting various critters found in her explorations. As a teen, Amelia kept a scrapbook filled with stories of women who were successful in careers dominated by men at the time.

After working as a nurse’s aide during World War I, Earhart went for her first ride in an airplane in 1920. It was that very flight — only ten minutes long, but that was all it took to change her life — that made Amelia Earhart say: “By the time I got two or three hundred feet off the ground, I knew I had to fly.”

On January 3, 1921, Amelia Earhart started flying lessons, and six months later, she owned her very own airplane, nicknamed “The Canary”. It was with that plane that she set a world record for female pilots in 1922, being the first to reach an altitude of 14,000 feet. On May 15, 1923, she became the 16th woman to receive a pilot’s license from the Fédération Aèronatique Internationale.

In April of 1928, Earhart received a phone call asking her if she’d like to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. While she was a passenger and not the the pilot of this June 1928 flight, its news coverage helped to promote her to a level of celebrity, leading to her nicknames of “Lady Lindy” or the “Queen of the Air”. Continue reading → Continue reading

By Katherine Handcock, A Mighty Girl Senior Research Intern

Since A Mighty Girl launched in April 2012, one question we’ve received from many parents is what parenting books we recommend to help them raise strong, confident, independent, and courageous girls. With that in mind, A Mighty Girl is proud to launch our new parenting section, featuring over 150 carefully-selected books about a wide variety of parenting issues.

A Mighty Girl’s parenting philosophy is that kids should be encouraged to explore their own interests and strengths, rather than following society’s narrow idea of what is gender appropriate. We believe in encouraging girls and supporting the development of their healthy self-image while fostering their compassion and respect for others.

We also believe that kids need to learn basic life skills like financial management, responsible technology use, and stress management so that they can be happy and safe, even as their world expands from childhood life with Mom and Dad to teenage freedom and eventually adult independence. Most importantly, we believe that parents can make all of those things happen. Continue reading → Continue reading