Tag: Strong women

Kid Lit Women

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Kid Lit Women is:

“A podcast of interviews and essays focusing on women’s and gender issues, including non-binary and gender fluidity, in the children’s literature community and all its intersectionality!”

There were 100 episodes posted from July 2018 to June 2019, and while I’m unsure if there are any plans to add more, I’m so excited to visit all these recorded podcasts.  I am a huge Grace Lin fan, but I only just recently discovered this podcast, so I have many, many more episodes to enjoy.  I’m delighted to hear these issues being discussed, and when I realized episode 3 was a conversation between two of my favorite authors, Shannon Hale and Grace Lin, I almost couldn’t believe my ears!   I think Grace Lin is super rad for taking the initiative on this, and I love that so many authors stepped up to have this discussion.  Thank you all! (…she says, on the very off-chance any of these amazing people visit…)  =)

Run Like a Girl!

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I’ve been listening to the KidLitWomen podcast, and it reminded me of this video commercial I had seen.  I tend to miss the viral videos, but I am SO grateful to have seen this one.  I cry every time.  And I LOVE that this notion of “like a girl” is being revisited, rethought, and embraced as something strong and powerful.

(When my friend and I separately asked our daughters to “run like a girl,” they both responded like the young girls in the video.  Huzzah!)

The Goose Girl

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The Goose Girl (2003)
by Shannon Hale

I love Shannon Hale‘s books.  My first book of hers was The Princess Academy, and I remember the lovely way I felt after reading it and seeing there was this other Shannon Hale book out there called The Goose Girl.  And, for some reason, I resisted looking into it right away.  Unfamiliar with the fairy tale it’s based on, my mind started making up stories about what the book was about before even cracking the cover.  The Goose Girl is an incredible book (of course) and (lucky for the reader) the first of a series of four!

The Goose Girl is based on the Grimm’s fairy tale of the same title.  Doing my best to sum up the novel here– Anidori is a princess in Kildenree, but is arranged to marry a prince from a neighboring kingdom to avoid war.  On her three-month journey to Bayern, she is accompanied by many guards and her lady-in-waiting, Selia.  As they near Bayern, things start to shift.  Selia begins acting strange and a good majority of the soldiers seem to break off into Selia’s “group,” while a small number remain loyal to Princess Ani.  Selia’s plan is to show up in Bayern as the princess, instead of as the lady-in-waiting, since nobody there will know otherwise.  There is a mutiny in the forest, and Ani makes a close escape.  She spends months working as a goose girl in Bayern while she tries to figure out how to convince the king of the truth and stop an impending war based on false information from the false princess.

There is everything in this book–adventure, danger, humor, friendship, romance, courage, and so much more.  It definitely has some “darker” parts, so I’d be cautious of recommending it to too young a reader, but if you or your reader is ready for it, I can’t recommend The Goose Girl highly enough.  This last read of it was a re-read for me, and I could not stop turning pages.  I’m so excited to re-visit the rest of the Bayern books!

When Jessie Came Across the Sea

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When Jessie Came Across the Sea
written by Amy Hest, illustrated by P.J. Lynch 1997

This picture book tells the story of Jessie, a girl living with her grandmother in a small village in Europe.  When she is chosen to go to America, Jessie must leave the life she knew and make the tough, exciting journey alone.  This picture book, although not super long, sometimes feels like an entire novel when I read it, in that it covers so many emotions and so much story.  I cry at the end every time.  This is a great book to read whenever, but especially if you’re studying immigration.

 

Princess in Black series

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Princess in Black series
by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale

Princess Magnolia is prim and proper and everything a typical princess should be.  But she has a secret.  You see, Princess Magnolia is also the fearless Princess in Black who saves goats from the very hungry monsters of Monsterland.  There are six books in the series so far.  With each new book, Princess in Black is gradually joined by other masked heroes who help her in her quest.  The books are technically chapter books, but they are quick reads and so much fun.  They’ve got clever humor, cute stories, a fun rhythm, and a wonderful blend of princesses and masked heroes.

I tried introducing these books a few years ago, and while our daughter did enjoy the first one, it wasn’t until she was five and a half or so that she really became a Princess in Black enthusiast.  For awhile there, we read these books WAY too many times to count each day and evening.  We are eagerly awaiting Book Seven!