These Mighty Girls are national finalists in the premier science competition for middle schoolers!

The Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge is the premier science competition in the U.S. for middle school kids and, like every year, the Mighty Girls in the competition continue to astound! The event challenges kids in 5th through 8th grades to use their scientific know-how to come up with an invention or solution that addresses an everyday problem. Whether it's an issue that affects themselves, their family, their community, or the whole world, they get to turn their ingenuity and drive towards making a difference — and every year, it's amazing what these young scientists think up!

This year, three of the national finalists are Mighty Girl scientists! These Young Scientist finalists will be spending their summers working with mentors to develop their visions into a more polished prototype, and we can't wait to see the results at the finals in October, where they'll be vying for a $25,000 prize and the title of "America's Top Young Scientist" for 2018.

In this blog post, we introduce you to these clever and creative Mighty Girls and their incredible projects. From using infrared light to detect microplastics in ocean water to designing a water-saving toilet flushing system to using alginate gel to relieve dental pain, these Mighty Girls' inventive solutions to everyday problems will inspire science lovers of every age! Continue reading → Continue reading

New data finds parents pay girls half the allowance paid to boys.

The gender pay gap starts much earlier than most people imagine with new data showing that parents, on average, pay boys twice as much for doing chores per week than girls. The chore app BusyKid analyzed 10,000 families in their database and discovered that the average boy earned $13.80 in weekly allowance, while the average girl received only $6.71. The results highlight how traditional 'girls' work' is viewed by parents as being less valuable than that often assigned to boys — and raise awareness of the concerning messages girls receive from an early age about what their work is worth. "It was interesting and shocking to see how much of a difference in pay there was between boys and girls in our network," says BusyKid CEO Gregg Murset. "I think this is an important wake-up call for parents to be cognizant of what they are paying to make sure they are being as fair as possible. I don't think any parent would intentionally pay differently based on gender, but clearly, it's happening." Continue reading → Continue reading

Our top picks of girl-empowering toys for all ages!

Several times a year, we release special guides for our supporters, including our annual Halloween Costume Guide, Holiday Gift Guide, and Books of the Year. By popular request, this year, we've prepared a special guide for Prime Day 2018 showcasing the best deals for the Mighty Girls in your life.

With Amazon offering over 100,000 deals for this year's Prime Day, it can be challenging to find the best deals for your family. To help make it easier, we've sorted through all of the options to find the most empowering and high quality toys and gear for kids of all ages, babies through teens. From building sets to arts & crafts to pretend-play toys, there's something that 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

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

Some of the greatest minds in the history of the world have been dismissed because they were covered with curls and bows. — Historian Gerda Lerner, founder of the field of women's history

When you think back to your history classes in school, you may realize, as Gerda Lerner did, that "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.

In honor of Women's History Month, we've collected the best biographies that have been published in the past 12 months about remarkable, determined, trailblazing women! These books for children and teens feature a broad range of women in many different fields, from science to the arts to politics and activism, making them excellent additions to any bookshelf or school curriculum. Whether you're sharing a picture book biography at bedtime or introducing your teen to an inspiring new hero, these books will remind them to tell women's stories all year long! 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

Our top picks of girl-empowering wordless picture books that will send kids' imaginations soaring!

Storytime is a popular ritual for many children — but what if the story has no words? Wordless picture books provide a unique storytelling experience, one that’s more interactive than a regular picture book: instead of just listening to you read, you and your child get to explore the action on the page and tell the story yourselves! A good wordless book, full of evocative illustrations with vivid details, encourages creativity and fosters plenty of discussion, either one on one or in a class group.

If you’re interested in incorporating wordless picture books into your library, we've showcased our favorites girl-empowering titles in this post. These intriguing, funny, and touching books will intrigue readers young and old alike!

For many more picture books starring Mighty Girls — with and without words — visit our Picture Book Collection.

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A Mighty Girl's round-up of the best last-minute deals on girl-empowering toys!

In our final toy round-up of the season, we're helping out the last-minute shoppers: all of the girl-empowering toys featured in this blog post are currently on sale and still available in time for Christmas. From science sets to pretend play sets featuring popular characters like Princess Leia and Doc McStuffins, we've included a range of options to appeal to Mighty Girls' diverse interests. And, best of all, with free two-day shipping for Prime members, you still have time to have it under the tree on Christmas morning! Continue reading → Continue reading

The Year's Best Biographies about Inspiring Women for Older Teen & Adult Readers!

On A Mighty Girl, we feature thousands of books for children and teens about smart, confident, and courageous girls and women, but we are also often asked for reading recommendations for adults about inspiring women of the past and present. To that end, in this blog post, we're sharing our favorite biographies for older teen and adult readers about Mighty Women that were released in either hardcover or paperback this year. Whether you're looking for an empowering last-minute Christmas present or a thought-provoking title to tackle in the new year, these women's stories are sure to inspire!

For more of our favorite Mighty Girl books of 2017 for all ages, visit our special feature on the 2017 Books of the Year. Continue reading → Continue reading

The "Women of NASA" Lego Set has become one of this year's top toys -- now learn the inspiring stories of these trailblazing scientists!

When LEGO released their Women of NASA Building Set last month, it was a sensation. Our Facebook post announcing its release quickly went viral. The set became Amazon's bestselling toy and sold out within a day, showing the strong demand for science toys with female scientists at the forefront!

The set features four pioneering women who made major contributions to the U.S. space program: astronomer and educator Nancy Grace Roman; computer scientist Margaret Hamilton; astronaut and physicist Sally Ride; and astronaut, physician, and engineer Mae Jemison. The 231-piece set, created by LEGO fan and science writer Maia Weinstock, includes minifigures of all four women and buildable models of the Hubble space telescope and a space shuttle.

Weinstock, who first proposed the set on LEGO's crowdsourcing design platform, designed her set to increase awareness of the contributions these women made to the space program and to science as a whole. In her proposal, she wrote: “In many cases, their contributions are unknown or under-appreciated — especially as women have historically struggled to gain acceptance in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)." In a later interview, Weinstock added that she believes it's "critical to have toys that girls can look at and play with and think, ‘that's me!'’ or ‘that could be me!"

The massive popularity of this unique set — the first of its kind since the now discontinued LEGO Research Institute — has generated a sense of excitement and curiosity about the women of America's space program. But while many children and adults may recognize their names, few people know the details of these pioneering scientists' work. In this blog post, we're introducing you to these remarkable women, filling in the details about their careers and why they deserve to hold a special place in space history. We've also recommended books for all ages that let those interested explore their fascinating stories in greater depth. They've been immortalized in LEGO form; now it's time to celebrate the women themselves! Continue reading → Continue reading