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 Wonder Women, 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

A Mighty Girl's top picks of empowering dolls and action figures for all ages!

Dolls and figurines have been favorite pretend play toys for hundreds of years, but there are a lot more choices now than there were in the past! Today, dolls and action figures can represent historical figures; popular book, TV, and movie characters; or people from around the world. With more options available, kids can imagine themselves as just about anything!

If you’ve been looking for a unique doll or exciting action figure for your Mighty Girl, you'll find dozens of our favorites in this blog post. From cuddly plushes for the littlest kids to highly detailed action figures and collectibles for older kids, teens, and even adults, there’s something here for everyone!

For more empowering toys of all varieties, from science to active play, visit our 2016 Girl Empowerment Holiday Gift Guide and our 2016 Holiday Guide blog series. Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top picks of space-themed toys and books for all ages!

With this week's 54th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, many Mighty Girls are dreaming about the stars! From mapping the skies as pioneers of astronomical science to walking in space on shuttle missions, women have made countless contributions to humanity's exploration of space. To encourage kids' interest in space, and introduce them to these trailblazers, in the first part of this blog post, we've featured a variety of books for children, teens, and adults about ground-breaking women of space exploration. In the second part, we've showcased our favorite space-oriented science kits so kids can learn more about space and pretend play toys so they can imagine themselves flying into outer space. After all, the sky is no limit to the dreams of Mighty Girls! Continue reading → Continue reading

Maria Mitchell became famous worldwide after becoming the first American to discover a comet.

Maria Mitchell (second from left) and her students at the Vassar College Observatory measuring the Sun’s rotation from the movement of sunspots.

At the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, the world's first women's rights convention, illustrious suffragists and feminists like Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton took time to honor a groundbreaking scientist: Maria Mitchell, who had just become the first American and third woman in history to discover a comet! Mitchell would go on to become America's first professional female astronomer, and she used her newfound fame to advocate for scientific education for girls and women. "Does anyone suppose that any woman in all the ages has had a fair chance to show what she could do in science?" she asked. "Until able women have given their lives to investigation, it is idle to discuss the question of their capacity for original work." Or, as she wrote more pointedly in one of her journals, "better to be peering in the spectrograph than on the pattern of a dress." Continue reading → Continue reading

Dr. Katie Bouman led the creation of a new algorithm to produce the first-ever image of a black hole.

Scientist Katie Bouman has said that photographing a black hole is "equivalent to taking an image of a grapefruit on the moon, but with a radio telescope." Today, the MIT postdoctoral fellow shared a photo of herself "watching in disbelief as the first image I ever made of a black hole was in the process of being reconstructed." Bouman and her team released this first-ever image of a black hole to the public, which is the first direct visual evidence that black holes exist. 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.

If you flip through a typical history book, you might think, as historian Gerda Lerner once wrote, that "ostensibly one-half the human race is doing everything significant and the other half doesn’t exist." Far too often, women's contributions have been neglected in history books and school curriculums — fortunately, there are growing numbers of wonderful books being published for young readers about girls and women who made their mark on history. And, there's no better time to share these stories and make sure that the next generation — girls and boys alike — appreciates the important and diverse roles that women have played in history than during Women's History Month!

With that in mind, in this blog post, we've collected the best biographies on remarkable women that have been published in the past 12 months, since the last Women's History Month. These books for children and teens feature girls and women who excelled in science, politics, the arts, athletics, and other fields. And, they serve as an excellent reminder that women's stories deserve to be told, not just during Women's History Month, but all year long.

For more books of inspiring girls and women from around the world, check out the hundreds of biographies and works of historical fiction in A Mighty Girl's History & Biography Collection. Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top picks of books, toys, and gear to inspire young astronomers -- and introduce them to the women who helped us understand the stars.

On August 21, people across North America will get the chance to witness a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event: a solar eclipse! It's the first total eclipse in the continental US since 1979, and for central US states, the first total eclipse since 1918. Even for those not in the zone of totality, partial eclipses will be visible in many places. So it's no wonder that there is so much excitement brewing — and with it, a surge of interest in astronomy and all things space!

If the upcoming eclipse has your kids clamoring to learn more about astronomy, this is the perfect time to pursue their interest — and to share stories of the little-known women who have made enormous contributions to the field. In this blog post, we're providing a selection of books to talk about the eclipse itself and gear to view the eclipse safely,  as well as a variety of toys and science kits to support an interest in astronomy, and books about female astronomers throughout history. It's a great way to show kids of all ages that the sky doesn't have to be the limit! Continue reading → Continue reading

75 New & Classic Girl-Empowering Books for Holiday Gift Giving!

"I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book." — J. K. Rowling

When you’re looking for a gift for a book lover of any age, the natural choice is a good book! And, while the hundreds of titles in A Mighty Girl's book collection have been vetted to ensure they are both high quality and girl empowering, we understand that during the busy holiday season a 'cheat' sheet of the best Mighty Girl books for gifting can make choosing a book for a special child or young person much easier. To that end, in this blog post, we've complied a selection of enduring Mighty Girl favorites, alongside a number of the best 2016 new releases (which are marked by a brand new icon below). From gorgeously-illustrated picture books to thought-provoking teen fiction, these titles will delight, intrigue, educate, and inspire girls and boys alike!

To discover more 2016 releases, stay tuned for our annual 'Year in Review' round-up of the best Mighty Girl books of 2016, which we'll be releasing in early January.

Of course, you can also find many more reading recommendations in our entire collection of nearly 2,500 Mighty Girl books for all ages. And, for anyone looking for reading recommendations for adults, don't miss our new blog post Stories of Mighty Women: 2016 Biographies for Adult Readers. Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top picks of girl-empowering box sets and collections for children and teens!

If there’s anything a reader loves more than a new book, it’s a captivating new series! A series is an excellent way to encourage kids' interest in reading as they get drawn into a story over several books — and, for those rabid readers, collections let them find out what happens to their favorite new character without having to wait for the next book to be released! Continue reading → Continue reading

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