A huge thank you to Kelly Fineman whose rant is both dead-on and inspiring. Therefore, I am posting in honor of Women’s History Month (which began with International Women’s Day (also ignored in this country when others in Europe got a day off…) Below, please find a few of my favorite books that have to do with girls and women who had historical and political vision and the authors and illustrators who have artistic vision.
From Kathry Lasky and David Caltrow:
She’s Wearing a Dead Bird on Her Head!
(Illustrated by David Catrow)
Harriet Hemenway and her cousin Minna Hall are very proper Boston ladies, but they find the latest nineteenth-century fashion in women’s hats appalling. All over town, fashionable ladies are parading around with dead birds perched upon their heads! So Minna and Harriet gather together the most prominent people in the area to form a club to protect the birds—the Audubon Society. Eventually they garner enough nationwide attention to initiate the passage of important bird protection acts.
Also two books by Shana Corey:
Katie Casey is in a league of her own: “She preferred sliding to sewing, batting to baking, and home runs to homecoming.” Unfortunately, baseball is not considered ladylike in 1942. But when the male professional baseball players are called away to war, Katie has her chance to step up to the plate.
and 
Amelia Bloomer is not a proper lady. She thinks proper ladies of the 19th century are silly. They’re not allowed to vote, not supposed to work, and all that fuss about clothes! Ridiculously wide hoop skirts, yards and yards of hot petticoats, and cruelly tight corsets supported by whalebone or steel made women faint at the drop of the hat: “What was proper about that?” So Amelia, being so very improper, sets out to revolutionize the world for women.
(Images and jacket copy swiped from Amazon.com but go to your local independent bookstore to buy these, or shine up that Library card and check them out.)
Sorry I’m not more creative as it is 1 am and I just felt that this needed to be posted. Not as eloquent as Kelly’s rant but there it is. I’m sorry I’ve been so absent but the conference is two weeks away and I’m on week 7 out of 8 for single parenting.
Creative Chaos 