Starting a feminist/Women centred book collection for young girls

[Atreegrowsinbrooklyn]

I wasn't sure whether to post this in the books section but decided the knowledge and experience available on this board would be invaluable.

As a special gift that is intended to be ongoing, I'd like to set my friend's daughter up with a library of books in which females and the male-female relationship is depicted in a positive and equal manner. She is now nine years old, a total bookaholic with a pretty sophisticated and eclectic range. Book suggestions for future adolescent and adult reading would be great too.

This may include books from the past in which the female characters/ real women forge new pathways or books which intelligently depict the limitations women were/are up against. I would like to include Biographies and autobiographies too for future reading. Travel writers such as Dervla Murphy are the kind of role model I think would be ideal just to give an idea of the breadth of suggestions I am asking for.

I have many of the more famous writers such as De Beauvoir, French, MacKinnon, Greer for example and some fictionalized accounts of women doing interesting things such as Mary Anning (Mary Annings Treasures) but would really welcome some fresh suggestions.

Please include books suitable for young children too as I have very young nieces aged between one and seven. My own children are grown so I'm rusty regarding what's new in children's publishing.

What books resonated with you as a female?

Thank you all in advance.

When she's (quite a lot!) older - Living My Life by Emma Goldman

Have you seen www.amightygirl.com/ yet? Full of suggestions of what you're after.

Books for young children I think I'd include Blueberry Girl by Neil Gaiman, and for slightly older children (of your friend's daughter's age range) Pippi Longstocking and Ronja Robber's daughter, both by Astrid Lindgren, and the Tiffany Aching books by Terry Pratchett. Another good one may be Momo by Michael Ende (but not sure whether an English translation exists)

I love Philip Pullman's Sally Lockhart quartet, especially the third book, which, amongst other things, charts her political (socialist?) awakening.

But perhaps she's already read these if she's reading a lot. I don't think they are remotely childish, though... I have only ever read them as an adult.

This is probably one for when she is older, but what about the autobiographies of Maya Angelou? I've recently read them all and think they are wonderful.

If you do a search there have been quite a few thread with suggested reading for girls, it's something we all care about!

I have two little ones (2 and 4) and the books we have had so far that are good from a fem persepctive are

rosie's hat

zog - Julia Donaldson theme here!!!

maisie the mouse board books for teenies

There are plenty more!

oh yes Mary Anning. I also had a book about Helen Keller that I loved.

I don't know if it's still in print but when I was about your daughter's I had a wonderful book of feminist fairy stories called "The Practical Princess, and other liberated tales".

Jeanette Winterson
Margaret Atwood
Toni Morrison (not always 'empowering' per se, but her novels have a lot to say about gender and identity and are beautifully written)
Oh and would second Maya Angelou - fabulous autobiographies.

I have recently watched the film adaptation of 'The Hunger Games' and have read the two other books in the trilogy. DS (13) is reading them but not DD as she is 11 and I think a little bit too young for the moral and emotional complexity. DS says that lots of the girls at his school are reading them.

The books are about oppression and political struggle in general. I think they are excellent books and also good from a feminist perspective although that is not the books' actual emphasis. Firstly because the central character is female, and relates to many other important female characters in the story and there is very much a young woman's perspective in the way it is narrated in the first person. But secondly because there are aspects of the way that the oppressed groups in the books are othered that mirror ways that particularly apply to women in the real world. What makes this striking in the book is that it is applied equally to male and female characters from the oppressed group, so readers notice it in a way they might not if it just applied to female characters, which they are used to hearing about so might not seem so stark.

For the sort of age she is now, Harriet the Spy would be brilliant. Also for that age (or a little younger) Evangeline Mudd is great.

Thank you all of you.

I know there are older threads dealing with suitable reading but new books are published all the time and also I wanted to create an archive/library of books both timeless and of this time so wanted to ask the question afresh with the idea of this being my ongoing gift to her.

Jennyrosity

Would that be the 'Practical Princess' books by Jay Williams?

WidowWadman

Thanks for that website. Online resources would be an interesting addition.