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 round-up of the top deals of the week on girl-empowering toys!

If you love A Mighty Girl's 2017 Girl Empowerment Holiday Gift Guide, we've pulled together a selection of this week's best deals on girl-empowering toys that are featured in our guide. From the Rey & BB-8 Adventure Playset to a Pride and Prejudice Coloring Book to a star projector for aspiring young astronomers, we've included a range of options to appeal to Mighty Girls' diverse interests. And, with all of the toys available from 30 to 70% off, parents will love that they are both empowering and affordable. Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top picks of Wonder Woman-themed books, toys, costumes, and clothing for children and adults.

For seventy-five years, Diana of the Amazons — better known to the world as Wonder Woman — has been thrilling fans young and old! The DC superhero has been an icon of feminism, a champion of peace and truth, and an inspiration to girls in particular, presenting them with a strong, powerful female pop culture role model. And with the live-action Wonder Woman movie becoming one of this year's blockbuster successes, a whole new generation of Mighty Girls has been thrilled to see their hero on the big screen!

To celebrate Wonder Woman's rise, we've put together a blog post showcasing our favorite Wonder Woman-themed books, toys, costumes, and clothing for both children and adults. No matter your age, there's plenty of ways that you can let your love of Wonder Woman shine! 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 Hape Toys for Holiday Deals Week!

With a week full of great deals — perfectly timed for holiday shopping — we know that our community has their eyes open for exciting options for the kids on their gift lists. For Wednesday only, Amazon is offering a special promotion on toys from Hape, a company that makes high-quality, gender-neutral, ecologically-conscious toys, and we wanted to make sure our community didn't miss out!

In this blog post, we're highlighting twenty Hape toys suitable for young children. From marble runs to art easels, from wagons to workbenches, these toys encourage creative, open-ended play that's great for all kids, girls and boys alike. Plus, their solid wood construction ensures that they're durable enough to take everything that your Mighty Girls have to dish out! Parents will also appreciate eco-friendly details like the sustainably sourced wood, BPA-free plastic, and non-toxic dyes used in Hape's construction. Most importantly, these are toys that have stood the test of time that kids will love! 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

A Mighty Girl's 2017 Halloween Gallery is now live! A small sample of the nearly 2,000 photos submitted can be viewed in our Halloween Highlights post.

Thank you to everyone who submitted photos of their Mighty Girls in costume to our 2017 Halloween Gallery! We received nearly 2,000 photo submissions to this year's gallery and were awed by the creativity and variety of these Mighty Girls' amazing costumes. As we've always said, Mighty Girls know that their costume possibilities are limited only by their imaginations and with costumes ranging from ones based on favorite superheroes to ones inspired by historic role models, these Mighty Girls clearly know no bounds!

In this blog post, we've showcased a small sample of these incredible costumes -- to browse all of the amazing costume photos submitted, visit our 2017 Halloween Gallery. And, to help you and your Mighty Girl learn more about the wonderful historic figures and characters depicted, we've also linked to our character collection and biography section where relevant.

And, if you're seeking girl-empowering dress-up clothing or costumes anytime of year, visit our extensive costume collection with options for all ages from infants through adults in A Mighty Girl's Halloween Costume Guide. You can also find Mighty Girl stories for many of the upcoming holidays, including Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas, in our Holidays & Celebrations collection. Continue reading → Continue reading

Our top picks of affordable gifts for the birthday Mighty Girls in your life!

If you're raising a Mighty Girl, you might want to share the fun by seeking out girl-empowering gifts for her friends' birthdays! The range of gifts marketed to girls is often extremely limited and highly gendered — so a little variety can encourage the birthday girl to explore new interests that she might not have considered before receiving the gift.

With that in mind, we've pulled together a selection of our favorite girl-empowering birthday gifts that are all under $25 so they fit within birthday-gift budgets. With a wide variety of toys, ranging from science to pretend play to games, there's something here to appeal to every child! And, if your Mighty Girl has a birthday coming up, you can also share this blog post or direct them to our extensive toy collection to encourage friends and family to think a little outside of the toys traditionally marketed to girls when gift shopping.

If you're looking for a fun Mighty Girl party favor idea, check out this Superhero Cape and Mask Set, which includes cape and mask sets featuring Spider-Girl, Batgirl, Wonder Woman, and Supergirl.

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A Mighty Girl's top picks of newly released books starring girls and women who love science, engineering, and math!

With the demand for stories about female scientists at an all-time high, there have been growing numbers of exceptional books published about girls and women who love science, engineering, and math! It can be challenging for parents and educators, however, to stay up on all of the new releases so, to help make it easier, we've featured 12 of these titles in a new blog post. From books about role models like scientist Temple Grandin, computer scientist Grace Hopper, doctor Patricia Bath, mathematician Katherine Johnson, and marine biologist Eugenie Clark to fictional stories about science-loving girls curious about the world around them, there's sure to be a new book to appeal to every budding young scientist!

For more books for all ages about girls and women who love science, check out our blog post 50 Books to Inspire Science-Loving Mighty Girls or browse our entire Science / Technology Collection. Continue reading → Continue reading

The viral grassroots project of kids reading books to kids in hurricane-affected areas -- and the drive to rebuild teachers' destroyed classroom libraries.

When Hurricane Harvey struck this week, second grade teacher Kathryn Butler Mills of Katy, Texas quickly learned how many of her students were affected. In photos on social media, she saw “several of my students, past and present, sitting under staircases, in bathrooms, and in pantries, waiting out tornado watches and warnings.” She wanted to find a way to "bring a little normal to them in very not normal circumstances.” After seeing a number of kids pictured with books in hand, she hit on the idea of creating an online book club where kids would record videos of themselves reading aloud to share with other kids who had no books within reach. "I thought, let’s keep the momentum of a brand new school year going and have them record themselves reading for their classmates,” Mills said. “My original plan was that I would make a positive comment on each one, and encourage others to join in.” With that, the Hurricane Harvey Book Club was born! Continue reading → Continue reading