It’s Women’s History Month! Book It!

It’s Women’s History Month!
There are a gazillion different ways to celebrate the vital role women have played in America’s history.
Participating institutions sponsoring events, programs and exhibits include The Library of Congress, the National Archives and Records Administration, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Gallery of Art, the National Park Service, the Smithsonian Institute and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Given our readership, however, I say: just book it, especially with an Amelia Bloomer List award-winning children’s book!
The annual List is a project of the Feminist Task Force of the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association.  Titles include both fiction and  nonfiction for early, middle grade and young adult readers.
Click here to read the entire list.
Here are the Top Ten Amelia Bloom List winners for 2018.

Books are selected each January and must have been published in the U.S. in the previous 18 months. 
The only criteria?  They must “provide role models of strong, capable, creative women.”
According to this year’s Committee, “...these books show girls and women exploring exciting ways to solve practical dilemmas through the courage of their convictions. All of them spur the imagination and expand the limits of dreams while confronting traditional female stereotypes. And best of all, these books are fun reading!”

Amelia Bloomer, in case you didn’t know, was a singular feminist pioneer, a nonconformist and modern rebel who lent her name to a daring 19th century garment when she popularized in her newspaper The Lily the baggy gathered pants worn beneath a woman’s knee-length skirt - i.e. bloomers! Amelia believed writing was the best way for women to work for reform.  The Lily was the first newspaper for women, issued from 1849 until 1853 and published in Seneca Falls, NY. It began as a home distribution journal for members of the Seneca Falls Ladies Temperance Society.

FYI: The Lily has undergone a 2017 revival! 
Its mission is two-fold: "to empower with news and information and promote
inclusivity by exposing diverse voices.”
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and www.TheLily.com are all viable connection options.
Shana Corey’s picture book biography YOU FORGOT YOUR SKIRT, AMELIA BLOOMER (Scholastic Press) does one swell job telling Amelia’s important story to young readers.

Speaking of telling important stories of important women to young readers, meet three Chicago-area children’s book authors who did just that. 

From left to right:
Suzanne Slade, author of DANGEROUS JANE (Peachtree), Barb Rosenstock, author of DOROTHEA'S EYES (Calkins Creek), and Kate Hannigan, author of A LADY HAS THE FLOOR (Calkins Creek).

This trio of award-winning picture book biographers celebrated Women’s History Month this past Wednesday, March 7 at 57th Street Books in Hyde Park.  It was SRO and deservedly so. 

Happy Reading! Happy Celebrating!

Esther Hershenhorn