'Herstory' for 5 year olds - does this book exist?

[sethstarkaddersmum]

I decided to tell dd a bedtime story about the Suffragettes the other night and it really caught her imagination. She lay there for ages shouting 'Votes for women!' instead of going to sleep.

It got me thinking - I would like a book I can pick up at night for a bedtime story the way I do with my books of fairy tales and folk tales, but with female role models for dd so that she does not end up like the girl being discussed on another thread right now who chose Cheryl Cole as one of the most important women of our time.
When I was young I loved the R.J.Unstead 'People in history' books so what I really want is a feminist version of those.

Does anyone know of anything like this? I can think of so many great stories.

That's kind of what I mean. I could fairly easily get DS to read a book called "Cool Women". I stand less chance of getting him to read a book with a subtitle "a girl's guide to..." without resorting to subterfuge.

I love "THe Paper Bag Princess"
Written by two men, ironically

me too Sakura.
We read Smelly Socks the other day which is also by Munsch - I love the way Tina in that isn't girly, she is just..... a person.

I've got that Sandi Toksvig book - bought it for meself . Not a fan of the title either but it's got some great content &plenty of pictures and short fact sections that I'm sure your DD will soon be able to read for herself. You sound like a great mum. I only realised recently that my mum always bought me books that had great female characters in them. I asked her about it the other day, whether she'd done it on purpose, and she just looked at me as if I was completely thick and said "of course!" [my mum is great]

oooooh what other books with great females in Elephants ?

Mostly stories - watch out for the Virago books of fairy tales though as there's a lot of sex in there! Things like Joan Aiken were good, there was a thread about this actually, hold on.....Children's books which promote gender equality

I love "Don't bet on the Prince". Still available on Amazon (I just checked). I've had it about 20 years.

Thanks

Well that was rather interesting.
The Sandi Toksvig book arrived - dd is very taken by it and insisted on me reading her bits for her bedtime story. (I never knew a woman invented windscreen wipers! Wow!)
Her first reaction was, 'If girls are best, does that mean boys aren't as good?'
so I had to say, 'no dd. It's a joke.' but then when ds1 came home she started jumping around going, 'Girls are best! Girls are best!' until I told her I would take the book away again if she didn't behave nicely.
Anyway, then she showed ds1 a picture of a woman lifting weights and he asked, 'Is there a picture of a boy too?' and she said, 'No!' and he said 'Oh' in a little voice.
So at first I felt very sorry for him and then I thought well, this is exactly what girls have to take for granted from a very young age - that frequently there will simply not be an image of or reference to a girl doing the things that boys do.

(must be careful re ds1 though or he will get a chip on his shoulder and grow up to be a leading light in the Mens' Movement )

just an apropos of nothing type aside thought - isn't 'suffragette' a term of abuse from those days?

can't remember what the unisex word is for people who campaigned for universal suffrage

yes indeed. the word is suffragists and they called themselves women suffragists.
now you come to mention it, 'suffragettes' is pretty damn snotty and patronising, isn't it?