Princess Smartypants

[thefinerthingsinlife]

I brought my dd, who's 4, Princess smartypants which she loved, are there many other feminism story books aimed at children?

The Paper Bag Princess

Not sure if you're into religion or spirituality at all, but Big Mama Makes the World is a brilliant feminist retelling of the creation story.

I think The Paper Bag Princess will be the next one.

I'm just so fed up with books portraying women needing men to look after then/save them etc.

The new Julia Donaldson ZOG has a knight trying to "rescue" the princess who then trains as a doctor and he is her assistant and the dragon (zog) flies them all over the world.

Robert Munsch is great - we have Smelly Socks & Kiss Me, I'm Perfect as well as Paper Bag Princess.

DD currently has a major Pippi fixation - in fact it's the thing that has finally got her interested in reading. Which just goes to show, I think.

(when I say 'it just goes to show' I mean 'it just goes to show that girls actually want to read books with strong, empowering girl characters and they will absolutely lap it up if you make it available for them.)

I understood you!

Great thread....also tired of women walking on broken glass, sleeping with peas under their mattress and marrying the Prince. I seriously think those sorts of stories (and movies) gave me a very bizarre sense of the world. Boys get to be the heroes and girls have to marry them.

The Katy Morag books have lots of pragmatic, practical leading female characters in them - would be good 4 yr old stuff, especially if she is quite outdoorsy?

Pippi Longstocking is good.

Pirate Girl by Cornelia Funke is a good picture book for 3+

For older ones:

Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy

Jane Eyre, who is amazing:
"Women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags."

"I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself."

How's that for empowered?

Garth Nix has some pretty empowering female characters, but again, his books are for older readers.

For younger girls, hmm. My DD isn't quite there yet (3m/o! ), and my childghood was dominated by Enid Blyton and other old-school kiddie books.

Ane of Green Gables is quite good though, and I read it when I was around, eight, nine?

Eva Ibbotson is good too, and her books start a little younger, Can't quite rembember precisely what age range though.

I am an older mother of 3 sons, 16, 17 and 19. I have brought them up in a fem way and I am so pleased that there are mothers like you who are trying, in a very difficult society, to encourage your daughters to be positive young girls and women. May be there is hope for the future with mothers like you!

For younger children, try Ella's Big Chance - it's a picture book reworking of Cinderella where the heroine jilts the Prince in favour of Buttons, and they go off to run their own business together.

Great thread! Have just filled an Amazon basket.

Yuno i'll be doing the same, dd's christmas stocking will be over flowing with books

The f word website has a young person's bookstore with some great books for all ages.