A Mighty Girl's top picks of the best new books for children and teens about incredible women from around the world.

Gerda Lerner, the historian and scholar who pioneered the field of women's history, once said, "In my courses, the teachers told me about a world in which ostensibly one-half the human race is doing everything significant and the other half doesn’t exist." But increasingly, we are reclaiming history, telling the stories of the girls and women whose contributions to our shared story deserve to be celebrated! As parents and educators, it's also important that we tell these stories to all of our children, boys and girls alike, so that they live in a world where history has always been about the contributions of all of humanity. Continue reading → Continue reading

Women are vastly underrepresented in Congress but research has found they are superior at governing.

The average American likely knows that there are more men than women in the U.S. Congress, but few realize how vastly underrepresented women truly are, how progress has been stalled for an entire generation, and how poorly the U.S. fares in terms of women's representation compared to the rest of the world. As of 2018, women hold only 20% of the seats in the U.S. Congress. Not only has this percentage barely budged for years, it's essentially akin to the representation of women in Saudi Arabia, a country famous for its poor record on women's rights. On a global scale, women's representation in the US lags far behind many other countries, ranking 104 out of 193 in the world. Continue reading → Continue reading

Our top picks of Mighty Girl superhero costumes from our Halloween costume collection and photos of Mighty Girls in costume shared by our community!

Who doesn't love pretending to be a superhero? Flying through the sky, using your skills, wits, and super powers to save the world is an exciting idea, especially for young children. So it's no wonder that superhero costumes are tremendously popular at Halloween! If a Mighty Girl wants to dress up as a favorite superhero, there's no shortage of Iron Man, Captain America, and Superman costumes but what if she wants to dress up as a female superhero? Costumes for even popular female superheroes such as Wonder Woman, Batgirl, and Supergirl are often nowhere to be seen. And if the costumes are available, often they are either highly sexualized, with short skirts and cutouts — hardly the right outfit for someone busy saving the day!

To make it easier to find empowering superhero costumes for fans of every age, from newborns to adults, we've showcased our favorites based on characters ranging from Black Widow to Bumblebee. In addition to being fun to wear, these costumes remind everyone that the world of superheroes has plenty of strong, intelligent, and courageous female characters to inspire costumes and dress-up wear. Dressed as her favorite superhero, your Mighty Girl will feel ready to take on the world!

For even more costume inspiration on themes ranging from superheroes to animals, you'll find hundreds of costumes for all ages from infants through adults in our Girl Empowerment Halloween Costume Guide. Continue reading → Continue reading

Our favorite occupation-themed Mighty Girl costumes from our own costume collection and photos of Mighty Girls in costume shared by our community!

Halloween dress-up fun gives kids a wonderful opportunity to imagine themselves in any number of roles, such as pursuing a future career aspiration! Whether she sees herself as a doctor, firefighter, ballerina, or scientist, she can "try on" her dream job for a night -- and perhaps even spark an interest that will last a lifetime.

In today's blog post, we share some of our favorite occupation-themed costumes, including a number from A Mighty Girl's costume collection such as veterinarian, astronaut, and chef costumes. Of course, many Mighty Girls enjoy the challenge of creating their own costume, so in the second section, we highlight a few of our favorite costumes inspired by careers that community members have shared with us in previous years!

For even more costume inspiration on themes ranging from superheroes to animals, you'll find hundreds of costumes for all ages from infants through adults in our Girl Empowerment Halloween Costume Guide. Continue reading → Continue reading

Our top 60 picks of backpacks for children and teens that reflect Mighty Girls' diverse interests in a wide range of colors and designs.

Whether you're looking for a new backpack for school, need something to tote stuff for sleepovers, or want a heavy-duty, high-capacity daypack for hikes and traveling, it's important that the bag you pick can take everything your Mighty Girl has to throw at it! At the same time, backpacks are a fun way to reflect a child's interests and a tween's or teen's personality. The best backpacks are the ones that both go the distance and capture the wide array of interests of the Mighty Girls in our lives!

With that in mind, we've put together a selection of our favorite backpacks for kids, from toddlers to teens. In the first half of this blog post, we've showcased a variety of backpacks in fun, colorful patterns that cover a wide variety of themes ranging from animals to science, and then in the second half, we've shared some of our favorite backpacks featuring Mighty Girl characters, including site favorites such as Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, Moana, Star Wars, The Incredibles, Inside Out, and Doc McStuffins. We're confident there's one every Mighty Girl will love! Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top picks of Mighty Girl superhero books for National Superhero Day!

When danger threatens, Mighty Girl superheroes get ready to don their capes and masks and set out to save the day! While superheroes like Wonder Woman have been around for decades, in recent years writers, illustrators, and publishers have realized how many girls around the world have been waiting to see superheroes who look like them. And between long-time favorite superhero characters, new reimaginings of existing stories, and original characters whose stories are all their own, there have never been more choices for girls of all ages!

In this blog post, we're sharing our favorite superhero stories starring girls and women, from early chapter books to trade paperbacks collections of comic series to prequel novels telling untold parts of a character's story. These stories are full of action and adventures, with Mighty Girl superheroes who rely on brains as well as brawn when it's time to fight for justice! Continue reading → Continue reading

"These aren't just the stories of famous people. This is what we're all capable of on our very best days."

For the past four years, Brad Meltzer's best-selling series Ordinary People Change the World has been teaching kids that 'everyone can be a hero' while introducing them to a variety of amazing people throughout history. This week, A Mighty Girl spoke with Brad about the release of his 15th book in the series, I Am Harriet Tubman, what he hopes kids take away from his books, and his plans for the future of the popular series.

To celebrate the new book's release, A Mighty Girl supporters can sign up to win an autographed set of all seven books from the series focused on the stories of Mighty Women. To enter, visit our I Am Harriet Tubman & Ordinary People Change the World Giveaway page. Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top picks of books, toys, clothing, and room decor featuring Rey!

For decades, many girls have loved the exciting stories of the Star Wars universe. But whether they were fans of the original rebel princess, Princess Leia, or eagerly followed the adventures of other Star Wars characters, like Padme Amidala, Ahsoka Tano, or Sabine Wren, it's often been challenging to find merchandise that celebrated the characters that they loved.

With the arrival of Star Wars: The Force Awakens — and the revelation that the film's star, Rey, was female — excitement began to build. But despite Rey's prominence in the film, fans were dismayed to discover that products featuring her were few and far between. This led to a hashtag campaign, #WheresRey, dedicated to seeking better representation of female characters — in particular Rey — in Star Wars merchandise. Fortunately, companies began to respond to the demand and provide more options for Rey fans.

In advance of the highly anticipated sequel, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, in this blog post, we're showcasing a variety of books, toys, clothing, and decor featuring Rey, as she is shown in both films. Whether you're seeking a storybook for a young fan, an action figure depicting Rey during her Jedi training, or artwork featuring Rey, there are many more options for all ages. Now, fans of this courageous and determined Mighty Girl character can read stories, play with toys, dress up, and decorate the walls — all with Rey! Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top picks of girl-empowering pretend play toys!

Remember spending hours enjoying imaginary play? Most adults fondly recall hours, days, and sometimes years of pretending — from career dress-up to action figure adventures to playing house. These flights of fancy develop all sorts of skills in our kids, from cooperating with other kids to understanding of how our world works, but most importantly, they are lots of fun!

To spark your Mighty Girl's imagination this holiday, we've collected a selection of our favorite pretend play toys. Unlike toys and games that move a storyline in one direction, these flexible toys encourage kids to create — and recreate! — their own stories. Whether she's dreaming of superheroes or space travel, cooking or caring for patients, there's something in our recommendations that's sure to catch her attention and prompt even more exciting play. Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top picks of new biographies about Mighty Women for adult readers.

Our community loves the children's and young adult books we share — but they also love when we share titles that are suitable for adult readers! In this new post, you can discover our favorite new releases for adults from fall 2017. From scientists to political leaders, athletes to activists, these mighty women lived fascinating lives and their stories deserve to be told. We hope that you'll enjoy these recommendations as much as the Mighty Girls in your lives enjoy our recommendations of biographies for them!

For more biographies and memoirs for adult readers, check out our blog post from earlier this year, Stories of Mighty Women: 55 New Biographies for Adult Readers. Continue reading → Continue reading