A Mighty Girl's favorite Hanukkah stories starring Mighty Girls!

This year, Hanukkah, the winter Festival of Lights, begins on December 18. To help you celebrate the miracle of eight days of light, we're sharing our favorite Hanukkah books starring Mighty Girls. These books celebrate this special holiday and how it brings families together for eight special nights every winter. Full of joy, fun, and the importance of family tradition, these stories are a perfect way to remember this special holiday.

You can also learn about our favorite books celebrating Christmas in our blog post, Christmas is Coming: Mighty Girl Christmas Stories.
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A photo collection of Mighty Girls who honored the suffragists who fought for women's right to vote this Halloween!

On Halloween, many Mighty Girls took the opportunity to honor their heroes — and encourage adults to exercise their hard-earned right to vote this Election Day! These Mighty Girls dressed up as suffragists, or suffragettes as they were often called in Britain, paying tribute to the bold women who fought for women's right to vote. In America, the fight for the vote lasted for over 70 years, and countless women struggled, protested, and were imprisoned for the cause. As suffrage leader Lucy Burns, who served more jail time than any other American suffragist, once observed: "I think we have done all this for women, and we have sacrificed everything we possessed for them, and now let them fight for it now."
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After witnessing the violent round-up of Jewish children by the Nazis, Marion Pritchard became an active resister who helped save the lives of 150 Dutch Jews.

While riding her bicycle to class at her university in Amsterdam in 1942, Marion Pritchard chanced upon a group of Nazi soldiers liquidating a Jewish children's home and watched helplessly as they violently threw young children into a truck. This encounter transformed the life of the young Dutch woman forever, leading her to become an active resister to the Nazi regime and ultimately save the lives of 150 Jewish children during World War II. Over three years, she risked her life numerous times by hiding Jewish refugees, arranging falsified identification papers, finding non-Jewish homes to take in Jewish children, and performing what was known as the "mission of disgrace" by falsely registering herself as the unwed mother of newborn babies to conceal their Jewish identity. "Most of us were brought up to tell [the] truth, to obey the secular law and the Ten Commandments," Pritchard reflected in 1996 during a lecture about her wartime experience. "By 1945, I had lied, stolen, cheated, deceived and even killed." Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top books for Thanksgiving!

Every November, families in the United States celebrate Thanksgiving — a special day of family, feasting, and thankfulness! In celebration of the upcoming holiday, we're sharing our favorite Thanksgiving stories starring girls and women. Of special interest to many of our supporters will be a children's biography about Sarah Hale, the woman responsible for Thanksgiving becoming a national holiday. Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top picks of STEM-themed games for all ages!

"Science is not a boy's game, it's not a girl's game. It's everyone's game." — Nichelle Nichols

When a baby drops a block over and over, she's doing what humans do naturally: turning science into a game! Playful experimentation is the first step to a lifetime of STEM learning. As kids get older, however, they can lose that creative spirit and start seeing learning about science and math as a chore, rather than a fun and exciting way to discover the wonders of the universe. Continue reading → Continue reading

Dr. Patricia Bath was an early pioneer of laser eye surgery whose cataract-removal invention has saved the vision of millions of people around the world.

A Renaissance woman in the world of vision, the pioneering ophthalmologist Dr. Patricia Bath not only founded the discipline of community ophthalmology to help underserved populations  have better access to vision care, she invented a device that quickly and easily dissolves cataracts, becoming the first African American female physician to receive a medical patent. Her invention of the Laserphaco Probe was recognized by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2014 as "one of the most important developments in the field of ophthalmology" for having "helped restore or improve vision to millions of patients worldwide." A trailblazer for both women and African Americans in medicine, Bath always considered the people she helped her greatest accomplishment, asserting that "the ability to restore vision is the ultimate reward." Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top arts & crafts toys for creative Mighty Girls all ages!

As many kids — and adults — know, there are few things as satisfying as expressing your creativity! Whether you're painting a picture, playing a song, or making something beautiful, arts and crafts inspire the maker as much as those who see them. And there's no better way to keep hands and minds busy if the weather is bad than with a fun new project! Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top picks of picture books about girls who love to dance!

For many Mighty Girls, nothing is more fun than moving to music! Maybe she takes formal ballet lessons, or maybe she and her family just take joy in putting on their favorite tunes and dancing together for fun. Either way, a love of dance is a great way to get exercise, have fun, and express your creativity!

If you have a child who loves to step, twirl, plie, and more, in this blog post, we've put together a collection of our favorite picture books starring dance-loving Mighty Girls that are sure to inspire and delight dancers of all ages!

For books about real-life women dancers for children and teens, visit our Creative Arts book section. Continue reading → Continue reading

Buffy Sainte-Marie on Sesame Street

When I was a little girl I was taught that there were no Indians. The only time I ever saw Indians was when we visited the stupid natural history museum and they were dead and stuffed like the dinosaurs.... [When Sesame Street] called me up and said that they wanted me to recite the alphabet like everybody else does, and count from one to ten....I said that I wasn’t interested in doing that, but I asked if they had ever done any Native American programming.... I was doing essentially the same thing that I was doing all along, in trying to raise consciousness and spotlight Native America, because it’s fascinating and interesting.” — Buffy Saint-Marie, Canadian-American Cree songwriter, educator, and social activist, in an interview with Confessions of a Pop Culture Addict, June 2009

Since Buffy Sainte-Marie’s episodes of Sesame Street aired in 1975, representation of Native American and Indigenous Peoples in media has significantly improved, especially in recent years. The Cooperative Children’s Book Center, which tracks representation in children's books, found that while only 0.6% of children's book featured Native American or Indigenous characters in 2012, that number increased to over 2% in 2022, a percentage akin to the current day Native American population in the United States.

Fortunately, among these titles, there are numerous great books available featuring Native American and Indigenous Canadian Mighty Girls! November is Native American Heritage Month in the United States, during which time we recognize the contributions and cultures of the Indigenous Peoples of North America.

To celebrate this heritage month, we’ve put together a selection of wonderful books starring Native American and Indigenous characters to share with your children. Whether reading a great piece of historical fiction, a fascinating biography, or a story that features modern Native American girls in their day-to-day lives, they’ll love these stories. And who knows? You might just learn a thing or two yourself! Continue reading → Continue reading

These are critical phrases girls can use when their contributions to a discussion are interrupted or discounted.

There are ten words every girl should learn according to writer Soraya Chemaly — not vocabulary terms, but critical phrases they can use when their contributions to a discussion are interrupted or discounted. Practicing her three phrases — “Stop interrupting me," “I just said that," and "No explanation needed" — will help girls speak them in real life, and teach both boys and girls that it’s not socially acceptable to interrupt or ignore a female voice. Whether in the classroom, in the boardroom, or on the Senate floor, it's time for mighty girls and women to persist and ensure that their voices are heard. Continue reading → Continue reading