To ask for your inspirational historical women or

[Furbulousnous]

men at a push that a 9 year old girl might like to learn about/ be inspired by??
DD loves non/ fiction biogs and we’ve done the obvious ones like Marie Curie, Amelia Earhart, Frida Kahlo, Anne Frank etc and ALL the female pirates!
So looking for ideas for either books your child has read or a great role model type that we can Google and read about! She likes reading about women more than men, and the more adventurous the better!

Try the rejected princesses Facebook or webpage

www.rejectedprincesses.com/

Do supervise though!

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Wow, you lot are awesome!! This’ll keep us going for a while… how amazing are some tho, some of these are absolute legends…

Sufiya Ahmed has written great books for that age about Noor Inayat Khan (WW2 spy) and Princess Sophia Duleep Singh (suffragette).

Pancho Barnes!
Very adventuresome.
Wealthy socialite, turned rogue.
Left her privileged lifestyle (and marriage), to learn to fly.
Did some rogue 'travelling' (gun-running) in boats, earning her nickname, Pancho. (Real name Florence.)
Did stunt flying in movies.
Ran her own "resort retreat" dude ranch in the Mojave Desert, for US military pilots.
She was quite a character!
There are several books, and a couple of films about her.
She was also featured a little bit in the movie, 'The Right Stuff'.
Lots to find out about me her.

Mary Wollstonecraft (Mary Shelley’s mum! So include her as well! I love the original Frankenstein! )

How about Ada Lovelace as well.

All three were amazing women and not celebrated enough imo!

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Vivian Bullwinkel en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Bullwinkel

Apologies if said already, but the first one I thought of was Anne Lister. She was considered the first modern lesbian in the 1800s, and did a lot of travelling (both solo and accompanied), and ran an estate at the same time. All of her exploits were recorded meticulously in her diaries. Problem is, most of what you read about her is quite explicit (sexually) so may not be appropriate for a 9yo. But something for when she's older!

Maria Sibylla Merian was a early female scientist from the 17th century. She is the person who discovered the metamorphosis of insects (mind blowing that she is never mentioned when children learn about this). She travelled to Suriname (at the time a Dutch colony in South America) and documented the insect life of the jungle. Her drawings are brilliant and incredibly detailed.

The women of Bletchley Park. If you can, take DD for a visit too.

Boudicca.

Kathleen Johnson & her colleagues at the NASA space programme. The film hidden figures is a good watch too.

Jocelyn Bell, Ada Lovelace and Rosalind Franklin.

When she's a bit older - Mary Wollstonecraft - who travelled widely on her own, was in France during the French Revolution, and was the mother of Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Wollstonecraft is pretty much one of the mothers of feminism as well!

Here's the Melvyn Bragg In Our Time programme about her:
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b00pg5dr

Marianne North - biologist and artist (there is a gallery of her work at Kew Gardens)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marianne_North
Anna Atkins - botanist and early photographer (her cyanotypes are beautiful)

oops posting at the same time as @ElaineMarieBenes - great minds and all that!

@Ponoka7

"Rosa Parks"

Claudette Colvin was the first to refuse to move, they used Rosa Parks because she was more socially acceptable.

I didn't know that. Shocking when you read why.

Look on 'A Mighty Girl' for never ending inspiration and lists of books like this for all different ages.
Here
Or (or and) like them on Facebook for notifications into your feed every now and then.

Excellent resource.

Margaret Thatcher (whatever you think about her policies)
Barbara Castle
Both highly influential women who succeeded in what was then a man’s world.

Billie Jean King. She basically invented the concept of professional women’s sport.
Martina Navratilova. A great athlete and a pioneer for being an out and proud lesbian.

Hilary and Chelsea Clinton compiled a book about women you've probably never heard of but probably should read about.

It gives a couple of pages on each one, but you could then go off and do more research on those you wanted to ?

Here

Another South African: Albertina Sisulu.

She was a midwife and political activist in her own right, and became the breadwinner to allow her husband Walter to become a full-time activist. Among her many political positions during apartheid were co-president of the United Democratic Front, and Treasurer of the ANC Women's League.

After apartheid, she became an MP in the first democratic elections in 1994.

www.sahistory.org.za/people/albertina-nontsikelelo-sisulu

There seems to be children's book about her called Together We're Strong: The Story of Albertina Sisulu.

My dds love the goodnight stories for rebel girls books - they had 4 or 5 different anthologies.

Dd2 especially loved Kathleen Johnson and Nancy Wake.

Someone mentioned Eleanor of Aquitaine who has long been a huge heroine of mine. There are a few pretty impressive early medieval queens/princesses. Both the Matilda's (as in the wife of King Stephen and the more famous daughter of Henry 1) are worth a read about and the story of escaping from Oxford in a white cloak in a snowstorm is pretty cool.

A PP mentioned Violette Szabo: there's a film about her called Carve Her Name with Pride starring Virginia McKenna.

McKenna also played Joy Adamson in the film of Born Free, and the Born Free books are probably within the reading range of a 9-year-old. However there's probably a lot of historic racism along with the adventure, so you might want to prepare for that.

@Cuck00soup

The women of Bletchley Park. If you can, take DD for a visit too.

Boudicca.

Kathleen Johnson & her colleagues at the NASA space programme. The film hidden figures is a good watch too.

Jocelyn Bell, Ada Lovelace and Rosalind Franklin.

A great suggestion. They were/are amazing.

Can I add Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy Did amazing work towards establishing the education of women and girls in the 1800's

map.mappingwomenssuffrage.org.uk/items/show/306

There's a decent film about Rosalind Franklin: Life Story starring Juliet Stevenson.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0093815/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_81

The gals in Hidden Figures

Ruth Bader Ginsberg

Isabel I of Castile (warrior)

Harriet Tubman

Stacee Abrahams will be up there, soon

Elizabeth I.
Mother beheaded, declared illegitimate aged 3 and banished from court to be raised in relative penury, subsequently legitimised but 3rd in line to throne, imprisoned in the Tower by her sister, then queen of England - all by the age of 25.
Fiercely intelligent and skilled diplomat. Fascinating period of history.