By Jennifer de Beer, A Mighty Girl Senior Research Intern

To visit our expanded "Read Aloud" collection, visit our special feature, found in our "Best of A Mighty Girl" section, on the Top Read Aloud Books Starring Mighty Girls.

“Storytime” typically evokes images of small children seated in a ring on the floor, or perhaps a parent & child cuddled together before bed. Whisked away into a world filled with dragons and magical spells, the nuances of friendships, or glimpses into another time and place, read aloud sessions open up a world of possibilities. Often, these shared stories allow children to engage in material that would be beyond their independent reading levels.

Solid and extensive research exists on the importance and positive effects of reading aloud to young children. A recent analysis of international data, conducted by the OECD, supports the strong link between oral language development and reading skills, and even goes so far as to say that nurturing such skills at an early age is directly related to success rates in later school years. The practice of reading aloud is widely encouraged by many from Day One (if not before!), and the benefits are plentiful: increased literacy, school readiness, stimulation of language development, imagination, and memory -- the list goes on. Reading aloud also provides a prime opportunity for bonding and strengthening the connection with the children in your life. Continue reading → Continue reading

Author Ingrid Law

By Elizabeth Alarid, A Mighty Girl Senior Research Intern

We are thrilled to launch our new blog series on "A Mighty Girl Creators" with our interview with Newbery Honoree Ingrid Law, author of Savvy and Scumble. Savvy, A Mighty Girl Top Pick book, is the story of 13 year old Mississippi "Mibs" Beaumont and her extraordinary family, all who possess a "savvy", a special ability akin to a super power, that can range from raising mountains to controlling the weather to hearing the thoughts of others.

A moving and hilarious coming of age tale, Savvy follows Mibs on a rollicking adventure aboard a bus as she grieves for her hospitalized father, has her first kiss, makes new friends, and transitions into her teenage years. Though Mibs discovers her savvy along the way, she comes to realize that each person has their own special strengths that make them exceptional, even if it's a normal kind of special ability, like being caring, resilient, or nurturing. Filled with adventure, humor, and delightfully playful language, "Savvy" is a book that celebrates the strength, perseverance, and tolerance housed within each individual, magical or otherwise.

Savyy's author, Ingrid Law, is a New York Times bestselling author whose books have been placed on over 25 state reading lists, and have earned multiple awards, including a Newbery Honor citation, a Boston Globe - Horn Book honor, and the Lamplighter Award. Her work has received accolades from Publisher's Weekly, Oprah's reading list, the Today Show's Al Roker's Book Club for Kids, and Smithsonian. Ingrid lives in Colorado, where she writes full time and is currently working on her next novel. You can find her on her website and on Facebook. Continue reading → Continue reading

Today in Mighty Girl History, we remember the contributions of Nobel Prize-winning neurobiologist Rita Levi-Montalcini who died today at the age of 103. Born into a Jewish-Italian family in Turin in 1909, Levi-Montalcini's years in medical school coincided with the rise of fascism in Italy and the imposition of anti-Semitic laws which limited her career prospects.

Once WWII broke out, she and her family decided to stay in Italy rather than flee overseas and she built a laboratory in her bedroom to continue her research work. It was in this makeshift laboratory that she began studying the development of chicken embryos; research that laid the underpinning of her later Nobel Prize-winning work on the mechanism of cell growth regulation.

After the Nazi invasion of Italy in 1943, Levi-Montalcini and her family were forced underground and moved to Florence where she worked as a doctor in Allied war camps after the city was liberated. Following the war, in 1946, she moved to the U.S. for more than twenty years to conduct research at Washington University in St. Louis. It was there that she discovered nerve growth factor, a protein which regulates the growth of cells; this discovery was critical to better understanding tumor growth among other conditions. Continue reading → Continue reading

By Lili Sandler, A Mighty Girl Research Intern

We are pleased to introduce A Mighty Girl's “Small but Mighty” Toy Collection! We know that there are times when you want to get the Mighty Girl in your life just a wee special present, and we’ve selected 250 different toys that fit that bill. Whether you’re looking to stuff a stocking, reward her hard work, or just put a smile on her face, there’s sure to be something in this collection that will do the trick.

We've included toys to appeal to Mighty Girls of every age from infants to teens. You can choose from an array of girl-empowering sticker books, action figures, cards games, science toys, finger puppets, sports equipment, Lego minifigures, musical instruments and much more -- and the vast majority of the toys in this collection are small enough to fit into a Christmas stocking. We've also sought out toys that were very affordable. Everything in the collection is under $20 and nearly two-thirds of the toys are under $10. Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl recently launched its new toy section with nearly 2,000 high-quality, girl empowering toys. Liz Alarid, A Mighty Girl Research Intern and mother of a young Mighty Girl, was one of the interns instrumental in building this wonderful resource. In this essay, she shares her thoughts on genderization of toys and its repercussions on children's development.

To learn more about the new toy section, including a few tips on how to get the most out of your visit, visit our Toy FAQ. Continue reading → Continue reading

We frequently receive questions from people asking for recommendations for specific types of books or movies. In our "Ask A Mighty Girl" feature, we anonymously share select messages that may be of interest to the greater A Mighty Girl community. All messages are shared with the permission of the questioner.

Dear A Mighty Girl,

I was wondering if you happened to know of any lovely books with a Celtic theme I could share with my little sister? She is eleven and I am fourteen. We recently had some trouble with the other half of our family that is English and they convinced my little sister that she is ugly and should be ashamed for being Welsh. I was hoping you might know of some titles I could read with her to show her how beautiful and noble the Welsh and Celts are in general to help her? I especially want her to learn about our people’s history, the ancient Celts. Many historians see them as warlike and vicious but that cannot be farther from the truth. Our ancestors were beautiful passionate people. They knew how to live life to its fullest and to honour the world around them.

If there aren’t any Celtic books maybe something then that would help her realize that she is special and beautiful just the way she is? Our daddy helped me so much to understand that but he died last year so I am trying to pass on his wisdom. Our family is half Welsh and half English so at times it causes some friction. Most of our English family are the most lovely and wonderful people you could ever meet but a few for some reason think they are better than anyone else. Continue reading → Continue reading

Many parents enjoy reading picture books to their young children but reading aloud to children doesn't need to stop once they are able to read on their own. On the contrary, many child development studies have found that parents reading to their children in elementary school and beyond can have a very positive impact on the children’s language and literacy development.

One study from the OECD discovered that these impacts are long-lasting – children whose parents regularly read to them as 1^st graders performed significantly better in reading at age 15 than children whose parents rarely, if ever, read to them. Plus, reading together provides a great bonding opportunity for parents and children – a little dose of quiet, reflective time in the midst of a hectic day.

With these benefits in mind, we’re pleased to present A Mighty Girl’s newest special feature – the Top Read Aloud Chapter Books starring Mighty Girls. This list was compiled with elementary-aged students in mind but many of these stories are also excellent for older children as well. Here's a summary of the types of books found in this collection: Continue reading → Continue reading