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Did you know...?
The library has an AccuCut die cutting machine that you can reserve to use in the Youth Services Department. You have access to our inventory of over 150 different shapes, letters, and numbers. Easily cut out fun shapes for your classroom or your next party!
Guidelines for Use:
- Available to all Morton Grove Library users for use in the Youth Services Department during business hours
- Must be 13 years of age or older to use
- Paper is not provided by the Morton Grove Public Library
Please use this form to give advanced notice of the specific dies needed. For more information or for questions, call the Youth Services Desk at 847-929-4220x2.
Celebrating Women's History
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The Wharton Plot
Mariah Fredericks' mesmerizing novel, The Wharton Plot, follows renowned novelist Edith Wharton in the twilight years of the Gilded Age in New York as she tracks a killer.
New York City, 1911. Edith Wharton, almost equally famed for her novels and her sharp tongue, is bone-tired of Manhattan. Finding herself at a crossroads with both her marriage and her writing, she makes the decision to leave America, her publisher, and her loveless marriage.
And then, dashing novelist David Graham Phillips—a writer with often notorious ideas about society and women’s place in it—is shot to death outside the Princeton Club. Edith herself met the man only once, when the two formed a mutual distaste over tea in the Palm Court of the Belmont hotel. When Phillips is killed, Edith's life takes another turn. His sister is convinced Graham was killed by someone determined to stop the publication of his next book, which promised to uncover secrets that powerful people would rather stayed hidden. Though unconvinced, Edith is curious. What kind of book could push someone to kill?
Inspired by a true story, The Wharton Plot follows Edith Wharton through the fading years of the Gilded Age in a city she once loved so well, telling a taut tale of fame, love, and murder, as she becomes obsessed with solving a crime. -
Park Avenue Summer
“‘Mad Men meets The Devil Wears Prada,’ which might as well be saying ‘put me in your cart immediately.’”—PopSugar
It’s 1965 and Cosmopolitan magazine’s brazen new editor in chief—Helen Gurley Brown—shocks America and saves a dying publication by daring to talk to women about all things off-limits...
New York City is filled with opportunities for single girls like Alice Weiss, who leaves her small Midwestern town to chase her big-city dreams and unexpectedly lands a job working for the first female editor in chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, Helen Gurley Brown.
For Alice, who wants to be a photographer, it seems like the perfect foot in the door, but nothing could have prepared her for the world she enters. Editors and writers resign on the spot, refusing to work for the woman who wrote the scandalous bestseller Sex and the Single Girl, and confidential memos, article ideas, and cover designs keep finding their way into the wrong hands. When someone tries to pull Alice into a scheme to sabotage her boss, she is more determined than ever to help Helen succeed.
While pressure mounts at the magazine, Alice struggles not to lose sight of her own dreams as she’s swept up into a glamorous world of five-star dinners, lavish parties, and men who are certainly no good. Because if Helen Gurley Brown has taught her anything, it’s that a woman can demand to have it all. -
City of Girls
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
From the # 1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat Pray Love and The Signature of All Things, a delicious novel of glamour, sex, and adventure, about a young woman discovering that you don't have to be a good girl to be a good person.
"A spellbinding novel about love, freedom, and finding your own happiness." - PopSugar
"Intimate and richly sensual, razzle-dazzle with a hint of danger." -USA Today
"Pairs well with a cocktail...or two." -TheSkimm
"Life is both fleeting and dangerous, and there is no point in denying yourself pleasure, or being anything other than what you are."
Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.
In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing showgirls to a sexy male actor, a grand-dame actress, a lady-killer writer, and no-nonsense stage manager. But when Vivian makes a personal mistake that results in professional scandal, it turns her new world upside down in ways that it will take her years to fully understand. Ultimately, though, it leads her to a new understanding of the kind of life she craves - and the kind of freedom it takes to pursue it. It will also lead to the love of her life, a love that stands out from all the rest.
Now eighty-nine years old and telling her story at last, Vivian recalls how the events of those years altered the course of her life - and the gusto and autonomy with which she approached it. "At some point in a woman's life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time," she muses. "After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is." Written with a powerful wisdom about human desire and connection, City of Girls is a love story like no other. -
Violeta [English Edition]
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • This sweeping novel from the author of A Long Petal of the Sea tells the epic story of Violeta Del Valle, a woman whose life spans one hundred years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century.
“An immersive saga about a passion-filled life.”—People
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: PopSugar, Real Simple, Reader’s Digest
Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family with five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.
Through her father’s prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses everything and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling.
She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting times of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life is shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women’s rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and ultimately not one, but two pandemics.
Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humor carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional. -
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
*FINALIST for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction*
*WINNER of the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award*
*WINNER of the 2020 Story Prize*
*WINNER of the 2020 L.A. Times Book Prize, Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction*"Beguiling." --The New Yorker
"Tender, fierce, proudly black and beautiful, these stories will sneak inside you and take root." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Triumphant." --Publishers Weekly
"Cheeky, insightful, and irresistible." --Ms. Magazine
"This collection marks the emergence of a bona fide literary treasure." --Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Full of lived-in humanity, warmth, and compassion." --Pittsburgh CurrentThe Secret Lives of Church Ladies explores the raw and tender places where Black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are between the church's double standards and their own needs and passions.
There is fourteen-year-old Jael, who has a crush on the preacher's wife. At forty-two, Lyra realizes that her discomfort with her own body stands between her and a new love. As Y2K looms, Caroletta's "same time next year" arrangement with her childhood best friend is tenuous. A serial mistress lays down the ground rules for her married lovers. In the dark shadows of a hospice parking lot, grieving strangers find comfort in each other.
With their secret longings, new love, and forbidden affairs, these church ladies are as seductive as they want to be, as vulnerable as they need to be, as unfaithful and unrepentant as they care to be, and as free as they deserve to be.
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Undaunted
An essential history of women in American journalism, showcasing the most renowned trailblazers since 1840.
Undaunted is a representative history of the American women who ignored every impediment put in their way to do journalism’s most valued work. Brooke Kroeger examines the experiences of both the best remembered and the long-forgotten: beginning with Margaret Fuller’s improbable rise in the 1840s; tracing the breakthrough investigative triumphs of Nellie Bly, Ida Tarbell, and Ida B. Wells; revisiting the standout reporting of women who covered major news stories and every conflict at home and abroad since the Civil War; and celebrating many other outstanding careers up to the present, including those of Martha Gellhorn, Rachel Carson, Janet Malcolm, Joan Didion, Cokie Roberts, and Charlayne Hunter-Gault.
Chronicled here as well is the collective fight for equity from the gentle chidings of the late 1800s through the #MeToo movement and today’s racial and gender issues. Undaunted unveils the huge and singular impact exceptional women have had on a field still dominated by men. -
50 Years of Ms.
The New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice • A celebration of Ms.—the most startling, most audacious, most norm-breaking of the magazine's groundbreaking pieces on women, men, politics (sexual and otherwise), marriage, family, education, work, motherhood, and reproductive rights, as well as the best of the magazine’s fiction, poetry, and letters. • Featuring Billie Jean King, Alison Bechdel, and Audre Lorde, among many others.
“I’ve been a Ms. reader since its earliest days. The magazine’s bold, boundary-breaking reporting has motivated me, infuriated me, and inspired me. And now this one extraordinary book—50 Years of Ms.—captures it all.” —Jane Fonda, actor and activist
“Ms.—in 1972—normalized being a woman, abortion and all. And here we are, 50 years later, needing that now more than ever.” —Sarah Silverman, comedian, actor, and writer
For the past five decades Ms. has been the nation’s most influential source of feminist ideas, and it remains at the forefront of feminism today, affecting thought and culture with a younger-than-ever readership (ages 16-20!).
Ms. was the first U.S. magazine to:- feature prominent American women demanding the repeal of laws that criminalized abortion
- explain and advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment
- rate presidential candidates on women’s issues
- feature domestic violence and sexual harassment on its cover, long before either was widely understood or acknowledged
- commission and publish a national study on date rape
Here is the best reporting, fiction, and advertising, decade by decade, as well as the best photographs and features that reveal and reflect the changes set in motion by Ms., along with the iconic covers that galvanized readers.
Here are essays, profiles, conversations with and features by: Alice Walker, Cynthia Enloe, Pauli Murray, Nancy Pelosi, bell hooks, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Brittney Cooper, and Joy Harjo, as well as fiction and poetry by Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, Adrienne Rich, Rita Dove, and Sharon Olds, and many others. -
The Sisterhood
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • The acclaimed author of Code Girls returns with a “rip-roaring” (Steve Coll), “staggeringly well-researched” (The New York Times) history of three generations at the CIA, “electric with revelations” (Booklist) about the women who fought to become operatives, transformed spycraft, and tracked down Osama bin Laden.
“This masterful book cements Liza Mundy as one of our foremost historians.”—Kate Moore, bestselling author of The Radium Girls
A FOREIGN POLICY AND SMITHSONIAN BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Created in the aftermath of World War II, the Central Intelligence Agency relied on women even as it attempted to channel their talents and keep them down. Women sent cables, made dead drops, and maintained the agency’s secrets. Despite discrimination—even because of it—women who started as clerks, secretaries, or unpaid spouses rose to become some of the CIA’s shrewdest operatives.
They were unlikely spies—and that’s exactly what made them perfect for the role. Because women were seen as unimportant, pioneering female intelligence officers moved unnoticed around Bonn, Geneva, and Moscow, stealing secrets from under the noses of their KGB adversaries. Back at headquarters, women built the CIA’s critical archives—first by hand, then by computer. And they noticed things that the men at the top didn’t see. As the CIA faced an identity crisis after the Cold War, it was a close-knit network of female analysts who spotted the rising threat of al-Qaeda—though their warnings were repeatedly brushed aside.
After the 9/11 attacks, more women joined the agency as a new job, targeter, came to prominence. They showed that data analysis would be crucial to the post-9/11 national security landscape—an effort that culminated spectacularly in the CIA’s successful effort to track down bin Laden in his Pakistani compound.
Propelled by the same meticulous reporting and vivid storytelling that infused Code Girls, The Sisterhood offers a riveting new perspective on history, revealing how women at the CIA ushered in the modern intelligence age, and how their silencing made the world more dangerous. -
The six : the untold story of America's first women astronauts
“Vivid.” —The Guardian * “Engrossing.” —Booklist * “Suspenseful, meticulously observed, enlightening.” —Margot Lee Shetterly, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Figures
In this account of America’s first women astronauts “Grush skillfully weaves a story that, at its heart, is about desire: not a nation’s desire to conquer space, but the longing of six women to reach heights that were forbidden to them” (The New York Times).
When NASA sent astronauts to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s the agency excluded women from the corps, arguing that only military test pilots—a group then made up exclusively of men—had the right stuff. It was an era in which women were steered away from jobs in science and deemed unqualified for space flight. Eventually, though, NASA recognized its blunder and opened the application process to a wider array of hopefuls, regardless of race or gender. From a candidate pool of 8,000 six elite women were selected in 1978—Sally Ride, Judy Resnik, Anna Fisher, Kathy Sullivan, Shannon Lucid, and Rhea Seddon.
In The Six, acclaimed journalist Loren Grush shows these brilliant and courageous women enduring claustrophobic—and sometimes deeply sexist—media attention, undergoing rigorous survival training, and preparing for years to take multi-million-dollar payloads into orbit. Together, the Six helped build the tools that made the space program run. One of the group, Judy Resnik, sacrificed her life when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded at 46,000 feet. Everyone knows of Sally Ride’s history-making first space ride, but each of the Six would make their mark. “A spirited group biography…it’s hard not to feel awe for these women” (The Wall Street Journal). -
The Visionaries
A soaring intellectual narrative starring the radical, brilliant, and provocative philosophers Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, and Ayn Rand by the critically acclaimed author of Time of the Magicians, Wolfram Eilenberger
The period from 1933 to 1943 was one of the darkest and most chaotic in human history, as the Second World War unfolded with unthinkable cruelty. It was also a crucial decade in the dramatic, intersecting lives of some of history’s greatest philosophers. There were four women, in particular, whose parallel ideas would come to dominate the twentieth century—at once in necessary dialogue and in striking contrast with one another.
Simone de Beauvoir, already in a deep emotional and intellectual partnership with Jean-Paul Sartre, was laying the foundations for nothing less than the future of feminism. Born Alisa Rosenbaum in Saint Petersburg, Ayn Rand immigrated to the United States in 1926 and was honing one of the most politically influential voices of the twentieth century. Her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged would reach the hearts and minds of millions of Americans in the decades to come, becoming canonical libertarian texts that continue to echo today among Silicon Valley’s tech elite. Hannah Arendt was developing some of today’s most important liberal ideas, culminating with the publication of The Origins of Totalitarianism and her arrival as a peerless intellectual celebrity. Perhaps the greatest thinker of all was a classmate of Beauvoir’s: Simone Weil, who turned away from fame to devote herself entirely to refugee aid and the resistance movement during the war. Ultimately, in 1943, she would starve to death in England, a martyr and true saint in the eyes of many.
Few authors can synthesize gripping storytelling with sophisticated philosophy as Wolfram Eilenberger does. The Visionaries tells the story of four singular philosophers—indomitable women who were refugees and resistance fighters—each putting forward a vision of a truly free and open society at a time of authoritarianism and war. -
The Hello Girls
In 1918, the U.S. Army Signal Corps sent 223 women to France at General Pershing’s explicit request. They were masters of the latest technology: the telephone switchboard. While suffragettes picketed the White House and President Wilson struggled to persuade a segregationist Congress to give women of all races the vote, these courageous young women swore the army oath and settled into their new roles. Elizabeth Cobbs reveals the challenges they faced in a war zone where male soldiers wooed, mocked, and ultimately celebrated them.
The army discharged the last Hello Girls in 1920, the year Congress ratified the Nineteenth Amendment. When they sailed home, they were unexpectedly dismissed without veterans’ benefits and began a sixty-year battle that a handful of survivors carried to triumph in 1979.
“What an eye-opener! Cobbs unearths the original letters and diaries of these forgotten heroines and weaves them into a fascinating narrative with energy and zest.”
—Cokie Roberts, author of Capital Dames
“This engaging history crackles with admiration for the women who served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during the First World War, becoming the country’s first female soldiers.”
—New Yorker
“Utterly delightful... Cobbs very adroitly weaves the story of the Signal Corps into that larger story of American women fighting for the right to vote, but it’s the warm, fascinating job she does bringing her cast...to life that gives this book its memorable charisma... This terrific book pays them a long-warranted tribute.”
—Christian Science Monitor
“Cobbs is particularly good at spotlighting how closely the service of military women like the Hello Girls was tied to the success of the suffrage movement.”
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The Women of NOW
"A clear blueprint for change . . . A must-read." —Clara Bingham, The Guardian
The history of NOW—its organization, trials, and revolutionary mission—told through the work of three members.
In the summer of 1966, crammed into a D.C. hotel suite, twenty-eight women devised a revolutionary plan. Betty Friedan, the well-known author of The Feminine Mystique, and Pauli Murray, a lawyer at the front lines of the civil rights movement, had called this renegade meeting from attendees at the annual conference of state women’s commissions. Fed up with waiting for government action and trying to work with a broken system, they laid out a vision for an organization to unite all women and fight for their rights. Alternately skeptical and energized, they debated the idea late into the night. In less than twenty-four hours, the National Organization for Women was born.
In The Women of NOW, the historian Katherine Turk chronicles the growth and enduring influence of this foundational group through three lesser-known members who became leaders: Aileen Hernandez, a federal official of Jamaican American heritage; Mary Jean Collins, a working-class union organizer and Chicago Catholic; and Patricia Hill Burnett, a Michigan Republican, artist, and former beauty queen. From its bold inception through the tumultuous training ground of the 1970s, NOW’s feminism flooded the nation, permanently shifted American culture and politics, and clashed with conservative forces, presaging our fractured national landscape. These women built an organization that was radical in its time but flexible and expansive enough to become a mainstream fixture. This is the story of how they built it—and built it to last.
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Women in White Coats
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
For fans of Hidden Figures and Radium Girls comes the remarkable story of three Victorian women who broke down barriers in the medical field to become the first women doctors, revolutionizing the way women receive health care.
In the early 1800s, women were dying in large numbers from treatable diseases because they avoided receiving medical care. Examinations performed by male doctors were often demeaning and even painful. In addition, women faced stigma from illness--a diagnosis could greatly limit their ability to find husbands, jobs or be received in polite society.
Motivated by personal loss and frustration over inadequate medical care, Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Sophia Jex-Blake fought for a woman's place in the male-dominated medical field. For the first time ever, Women in White Coats tells the complete history of these three pioneering women who, despite countless obstacles, earned medical degrees and paved the way for other women to do the same. Though very different in personality and circumstance, together these women built women-run hospitals and teaching colleges--creating for the first time medical care for women by women.
With gripping storytelling based on extensive research and access to archival documents, Women in White Coats tells the courageous history these women made by becoming doctors, detailing the boundaries they broke of gender and science to reshape how we receive medical care today. -
The Sisterhood
One Sunday afternoon in February 1977, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, and several other Black women writers met at June Jordan's Brooklyn apartment to eat gumbo, drink champagne, and talk about their work. Calling themselves "The Sisterhood," the group--which also came to include Audre Lorde, Paule Marshall, Margo Jefferson, and others--would get together once a month over the next two years, creating a vital space for Black women to discuss literature and liberation.
The Sisterhood tells the story of how this remarkable community transformed American writing and cultural institutions. Drawing on original interviews with Sisterhood members as well as correspondence, meeting minutes, and readings of their works, Courtney Thorsson explores the group's everyday collaboration and profound legacy. The Sisterhood advocated for Black women writers at trade publishers and magazines such as Random House, Ms., and Essence, and eventually in academic departments as well--often in the face of sexist, racist, and homophobic backlash. Thorsson traces the personal, professional, and political ties that brought the group together as well as the reasons for its dissolution. She considers the popular and critical success of Sisterhood members in the 1980s, the uneasy absorption of Black feminism into the academy, and how younger writers built on the foundations the group laid. Highlighting the organizing, networking, and community building that nurtured Black women's writing, this book demonstrates that The Sisterhood offers an enduring model for Black feminist collaboration.
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Mother Tongue
“A fascinating look at how we talk about women. . . . Dense with information and anecdotes, Mother Tongue touches on the hilarious and the devastating, with ample dashes of an ingredient so painfully absent from most discussions of sex and gender: humor.” ―Lisa Selin Davis, The Washington Post
“[Nuttall] examines the origins of words used over many centuries to describe women’s bodies, desires, pregnancies, work lives, sexual victimhood, and stages of life. . . . Her research is comprehensive enough that even longtime word enthusiasts will find plenty of new trivia.” ―The New Yorker
An enlightening linguistic journey through a thousand years of feminist language—and what we can learn from the vivid vocabulary that English once had for women’s bodies, experiences, and sexuality
So many of the words that we use to chronicle women’s lives feel awkward or alien. Medical terms are scrupulously accurate but antiseptic. Slang and obscenities have shock value, yet they perpetuate taboos. Where are the plain, honest words for women’s daily lives?
Mother Tongue is a historical investigation of feminist language and thought, from the dawn of Old English to the present day. Dr. Jenni Nuttall guides readers through the evolution of words that we have used to describe female bodies, menstruation, women’s sexuality, the consequences of male violence, childbirth, women’s paid and unpaid work, and gender. Along the way, she challenges our modern language’s ability to insightfully articulate women’s shared experiences by examining the long-forgotten words once used in English for female sexual and reproductive organs. Nuttall also tells the story of words like womb and breast, whose meanings have changed over time, as well as how anatomical words such as hysteria and hysterical came to have such loaded legacies.
Inspired by today’s heated debates about words like womxn and menstruators—and by more personal conversations with her teenage daughter—Nuttall describes the profound transformations of the English language. In the process, she unearths some surprisingly progressive thinking that challenges our assumptions about the past—and, in some cases, puts our twenty-first-century society to shame. Mother Tongue is a rich, provocative book for anyone who loves language—and for feminists who want to look to the past in order to move forward.
Celebrating Women's History - Kids
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Finish the Fight!
Who was at the forefront of women's right to vote? We know a few famous names, like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but what about so many others from diverse backgrounds--black, Asian, Latinx, Native American, and more--who helped lead the fight for suffrage? On the hundredth anniversary of the historic win for women's rights, it's time to celebrate the names and stories of the women whose stories have yet to be told.
Gorgeous portraits accompany biographies of such fierce but forgotten women as Yankton Dakota Sioux writer and advocate Zitkála-Sá, Mary Eliza Church Terrell, who cofounded the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), and Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, who, at just sixteen years old, helped lead the biggest parade in history to promote the cause of suffrage.
FINISH THE FIGHT will fit alongside important collections that tell the full story of America's fiercest women. Perfect for fans of GOOD NIGHT STORIES FOR REBEL GIRLS and BAD GIRLS THROUGHOUT HISTORY. -
Mae Among the Stars
An Amazon Best Book of the Month
A beautiful picture book for sharing, inspired by the life of the first African American woman to travel in space, Mae Jemison.
A great classroom and bedtime read-aloud, Mae Among the Stars is the perfect book for young readers who have big dreams and even bigger hearts!
When Little Mae was a child, she dreamed of dancing in space. She imagined herself surrounded by billions of stars, floating, gliding, and discovering.
She wanted to be an astronaut.
Her mom told her, "If you believe it, and work hard for it, anything is possible.”
Little Mae’s curiosity, intelligence, and determination, matched with her parents' encouraging words, paved the way for her incredible success at NASA as the first African American woman to travel in space.
This book will inspire other young girls to reach for the stars, to aspire for the impossible, and to persist with childlike imagination.
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Muzoon
When her family had to flee Syria, 14-year-old Muzoon was told to pack only the most essential things—and so she packed her schoolbooks.
This is the inspiring true story of a Syrian refugee who fought hard for what she needed—and grew into one of the world's leading advocates for education.
"I had nothing but my voice, so I used it."
This eye-opening memoir tells the story of a young girl's life in Syria, her family's wrenching decision to leave their home, and the upheaval of life in a refugee camp. Though her life had utterly changed, one thing remained the same. She knew that education was the key to a better future—for herself, and so that she could help her country. She went from tent to tent in the camp, trying to convince other kids, especially girls, to come to school. And her passion and dedication soon had people calling her the "Malala of Syria."
Muzoon has grown into an internationally recognized advocate for refugees, for education, and for the rights of girls and women, and is now a UNICEF goodwill ambassador—the first refugee to play that role.
Muzoon's story is absolutely riveting and will inspire young readers to use their own voices and stand up for what they believe in. -
Josephine
Coretta Scott King Book Award, Illustrator, Honor
Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award, Honor
Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, Nonfiction Honor
Parent's Choice Award
Wall Street Journal's 10 Best Children's Books of the Year List
Bologna Ragazzi Nonfiction Honor 2014In exuberant verse and stirring pictures, Patricia Hruby Powell and Christian Robinson create an extraordinary portrait for young people of the passionate performer and civil rights advocate Josephine Baker, the woman who worked her way from the slums of St. Louis to the grandest stages in the world. Meticulously researched by both author and artist, Josephine's powerful story of struggle and triumph is an inspiration and a spectacle, just like the legend herself. -
Joy, to the World
A young Dumplin' meets Melissa in this joyful and energetic middle grade novel about a twelve-year-old girl living her life to the fullest, celebrating her love for sports and fighting for her right to cheer.
Joy, a twelve-year-old trans girl, just moved to Texas with her mother and older brother. Her family has accepted Joy as the girl she is early in her transition, with little fuss, leaving Joy to explore her love of sports, competition, teamwork, school spirit, and worship.
But when she is told she's off the cheerleading team, Joy wants to fight for her right to cheer. As her battle with the school board picks up momentum, Joy attracts support from kids all around the country . . . she even gets the attention of her hero, trans activist Kai Shappley.
Inspired by Kai's own life, Joy, to the World is a timely story of living life to the fullest, celebrating and centering trans joy, courage, and resilience.
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Planting Stories: The Life of Librarian and Storyteller Pura Belpré
*Indie Next List Pick*
*Junior Library Guild Selection*
“An appealing tribute and successful remedy to the lack of titles about the groundbreaking librarian…a must-have for all libraries.” —School Library Journal (starred review)
An inspiring picture book biography of storyteller, puppeteer, and New York City’s first Puerto Rican librarian, who championed bilingual literature.
When she came to America in 1921, Pura Belpré carried the cuentos folklóricos of her Puerto Rican homeland. Finding a new home at the New York Public Library as a bilingual assistant, she turned her popular retellings into libros and spread story seeds across the land. Today, these seeds have grown into a lush landscape as generations of children and storytellers continue to share her tales and celebrate Pura’s legacy.
Brought to colorful life by Paola Escobar’s elegant and exuberant illustrations and Anika Aldamuy Denise’s lyrical text, this gorgeous book is perfect for the pioneers in your life.
Informative backmatter and suggested further reading included.
A Spanish-language edition, Sembrando historias: Pura Belpré: bibliotecaria y narradora de cuentos, is also available.
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Piece by Piece
In Priya Huq's middle-grade graphic novel Piece by Piece, Nisrin will have to rely on faith, friends, and family to help her recover after she is the target of a hate crime
Nisrin is a 13-year-old Bangladeshi American girl living in Milwaukie, Oregon, in 2002. As she nears the end of eighth grade, she gives a presentation for World Culture Day about Bangladesh while wearing a traditional cultural dress. On her way home, she is the victim of a hate crime when a man violently attacks her for wearing a headscarf.
Deeply traumatized by the experience, Nisrin spends the summer depressed and isolated. Other than weekly therapy, Nisrin doesn't leave the house until fall arrives and it's time for her to start freshman year at a new school. The night before class starts, Nisrin makes a decision. She tells her family she's going to start wearing hijab, much to their dismay. Her mother and grandparent's shocked and angry reactions confuse her--but they only strengthen her resolve.
This choice puts Nisrin on a path to not only discover more about Islam but also her family's complicated relationship with the religion and the reasons they left Bangladesh in the first place. On top of everything else, she's struggling to fit in at school--her hijab makes her a target for students and faculty alike. But with the help from old friends and new, Nisrin is starting to figure out what really makes her happy.
Piece by Piece is an original graphic novel about growing up and choosing your own path, even if it leads you to a different place than you expected.
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Rise
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, this beautiful biography of Maya Angelou describes how she rose above a childhood of trauma and emotional pain to become one of the most inspiring voices of our lifetime.
Writer, activist, trolley car conductor, dancer, mother, and humanitarian--Maya Angelou's life was marked by transformation and perseverance. In this comprehensive picture-book biography geared towards older readers, Bethany Hegedus lyrically traces Maya's life from her early days in Stamps, Arkansas, through her work as a freedom fighter to her triumphant rise as a poet of the people.
A foreword by Dr. Angelou's grandson Colin Johnson, describes how a love of literature and poetry helped young Maya overcome childhood trauma and turn adversity into triumph. Coupled with Tonya Engel's metaphorical and emotive illustrations, this biography beautifully conveys the heartaches and successes of this truly phenomenal woman, and in a powerful tribute to the written word.
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Maggie Lou, Firefox
Maggie Lou's grandpa doesn't call her Firefox for nothing. She's always finding ways to make life more interesting -- even if this means getting into big trouble.
When her grandfather Moshôm finally agrees to teach her how to box, she decides that the rank odors, endless drills and teasing won't stop her from wearing a tutu to the gym. Joining her father's construction crew uncovers a surprising talent -- besides learning how to use a broom -- and a great source of scrap wood to build a canine hotel for her dogs. And when she turns thirteen, she figures out an ingenious way to make some smokin' good camouflage to wear on her first deer hunt, where she joins a long family tradition.
Through it all she is surrounded by her big extended gumbo soup of a family, pestered by annoying younger siblings, and gently guided by her strong female relatives - her mother, her kohkom and her ultra-cool cousin Jayda. "Keep taking up space," Maggie's mother says. "You're only making room for the girls behind you."
A heroine for today, Maggie Lou discovers that with hard work and perseverance she can gain valuable new skills, without losing one iota of her irrepressible spirit.
Key Text Features
author's note
biographical note
chapters
dialogue
epigraph
illustrations
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Malala: A Hero for All
This Step 4 Biography Reader shares the inspiring story of Malala Yousafzai, the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Even as a young girl in Pakistan, Malala spoke up about the importance of girls’ education, via speeches and a blog. Since the Taliban regime was intent on denying girls an education and silencing anyone who disagreed with their laws, this was very dangerous. Malala was shot, but she survived the attack and it did not silence her. In fact, she spoke at the United Nations on her sixteenth birthday, just nine months after she was shot. Malala’s resolve has only magnified her voice, delivering her message of human rights to millions of people.
Step 4 Readers use challenging vocabulary and short paragraphs to tell exciting stories. For newly independent readers who read simple sentences with confidence. -
Ready to Fly: How Sylvia Townsend Became the Bookmobile Ballerina
Lyrical, inspiring, and affecting text paired with bright, appealing illustrations make Ready to Fly perfect for aspiring ballerinas everywhere who are ready to leap and to spread their wings!
Ready to Fly is the true story of Sylvia Townsend, an African American girl who falls in love with ballet after seeing Swan Lake on TV. This nonfiction picture book is an excellent choice to share at home or in the classroom.
Although there aren't many ballet schools that will accept a girl like Sylvia in the 1950s, her local bookmobile provides another possibility. A librarian helps Sylvia find a book about ballet and the determined seven-year-old, with the help of her new books, starts teaching herself the basics of classical ballet.
Soon Sylvia learns how to fly--how to dance--and how to dare to dream.
Includes a foreword from Sylvia Townsend, a brief history of the bookmobile, an author's note, and a further reading list.
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Warrior Girl
An insightful novel in verse about the joys and struggles of a Chicana girl who is a warrior for her name, her history, and her right to choose what she celebrates in life.
Celina and her family are bilingual and follow both Mexican and American traditions. Celina revels in her Mexican heritage, but once she starts school it feels like the world wants her to erase that part of her identity. Fortunately, she’s got an army of family and three fabulous new friends behind her to fight the ignorance. But it’s her Gramma who’s her biggest inspiration, encouraging Celina to build a shield of joy around herself. Because when you’re celebrating, when you find a reason to sing or dance or paint or play or laugh or write, they haven’t taken everything away from you. Of course, it’s not possible to stay in celebration mode when things get dire--like when her dad’s deported and a pandemic hits--but if there is anything Celina’s sure of, it’s that she’ll always live up to her last name: Guerrera--woman warrior--and that she will use her voice and writing talents to make the world a more beautiful place where all cultures are celebrated. -
A Girl's Bill of Rights
"I have the right to be bold, and mighty, and LOUD!"
In a world where little girls must learn to stand tall, A Girl's Bill of Rights boldly declares the rights of every woman and girl: power, confidence, freedom, and consent. Author Amy B. Mucha and illustrator Addy Rivera Sonda present a diverse cast of characters standing up for themselves and proudly celebrating the joy and power of being a girl.
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A Woman in the House (and Senate)
For the first 128 years of our country's history, not a single woman served in the Senate or House of Representatives. All of that changed, however, in November 1916, when Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first woman elected to Congress?even before the Nineteenth Amendment gave women across the U.S. the right to vote.
Beginning with the women's suffrage movement and going all the way through the results of the 2012 election, Ilene Cooper deftly covers more than a century of U.S. history in order to highlight the influential and diverse group of female leaders who opened doors for women in politics as well as the nation as a whole. Featured women include Hattie Caraway (the first woman elected to the Senate), Patsy Mink (the first woman of color to serve in Congress), Shirley Chisholm (the first African-American woman in Congress), and present-day powerhouses like Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton. The book is filled with lively illustrations and archival photographs. It includes a glossary, index, and chart of all the women who have served in Congress.
Praise for A Woman in the House (and Senate)
STARRED REVIEW
"It is no small task to create a book that summarizes over a century of U.S. history, gives a crash course in civics, and provides succinct, pithy biographies of numerous women who have served in the legislative and judicial branches of government. Cooper pulls it off."
?Kirkus Reviews, starred review -
Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer
A 2016 Caldecott Honor Book
A 2016 Robert F. Sibert Honor Book
A 2016 John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Award Winner
Stirring poems and stunning collage illustrations combine to celebrate the life of Fannie Lou Hamer, a champion of equal voting rights.
“I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
Despite fierce prejudice and abuse, even being beaten to within an inch of her life, Fannie Lou Hamer was a champion of civil rights from the 1950s until her death in 1977. Integral to the Freedom Summer of 1964, Ms. Hamer gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention that, despite President Johnson’s interference, aired on national TV news and spurred the nation to support the Freedom Democrats. Featuring vibrant mixed-media art full of intricate detail, Voice of Freedom celebrates Fannie Lou Hamer’s life and legacy with a message of hope, determination, and strength. -
The Bodyguard Unit
Who were the jujitsuffragettes?
In the early twentieth century, women in England demanded the right to vote--and faced violent retaliation. Rather than back down, the suffragist group Women's Social and Political Union formed its own security unit. Edith Garrud, a pioneering self-defense instructor, trained them to fight back against abuse and arrest while pursuing long-overdue rights.
This graphic retelling of Garrud's life reveals the resilience and (often physical) resistance of her era's voting-rights activists. Featuring an introduction from Elsa Dorlin (Self-Defense: A Philosophy of Violence), The Bodyguard Unit explores an explosive stage of the fight for suffrage.
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Revenge of the Red Club
A tween reporter discovers an important and beloved club at school is being shut down—and uses the power of the pen to try and activate some much-needed social change in this period-positive and empowering middle grade novel about the importance of standing up for what you believe in.
Riley Dunne loves being a member of the Red Club. It’s more than a group of girls supporting each other through Aunt Flo’s ups and downs; it’s a Hawking Middle School tradition. The club’s secret locker has an emergency stash of supplies, and the girls are always willing to lend an ear, a shoulder, or an old pair of sweatpants.
But when the school administration shuts the Red Club down because of complaints, the girls are stunned. Who would do that to them? The girls’ shock quickly turns into anger, and then they decide to get even.
But wallpapering the gym with maxi pads and making tampon crafts in art class won’t bring their club back. Only Riley can do that. Using the skills she has cultivated as her school paper’s top investigative reporter (okay, only investigative reporter), she digs for the truth about who shut the club down and why. All the while dealing with friendship drama, a new and ridiculous dress code, and a support group that is now more focused on fighting with each other than fighting back.
Can she save the Red Club before this rebellion turns into a full-scale war? -
We're in This Together
An empowering young readers edition of We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders, the memoir by Women’s March coorganizer and activist Linda Sarsour that’s “equal parts inspiring, emotional, and informative” (Kirkus Reviews).
You can count on me, your Palestinian Muslim sister, to keep her voice loud, keep her feet on the streets, and keep my head held high because I am not afraid.
On January 21, 2017, Linda Sarsour stood in the National Mall to deliver a speech that would go down in history. A crowd of over 470,000 people gathered in Washington, DC, to advocate for legislation, policy, and the protection of women’s rights—with Linda, a Muslim American activist from Brooklyn, leading the charge, unapologetic and unafraid.
In this middle grade edition of We Are Not Here to be Bystanders, Linda shares the memories that shaped her into the activist she is today, and how these pivotal moments in her life led her to being an organizer in one of the largest single-day protests in US history. From the Brooklyn bodega her father owned to the streets of Washington, DC, Linda’s story as a daughter of Palestinian immigrants is a moving portrayal of what it means to find your voice in your youth and use it for the good of others as an adult.