Please welcome author Lori Mortensen today with her list of Seven Picture Books About Women Who Dared. We are giving away 2 copies of her book, Away with Words: The Daring Story of Isabella Bird. Please fill out the Rafflecopter at the bottom to enter.
What are your favorite books about women who dared? Thanks for sharing!
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Ever since I was young, I’ve loved reading biographies about people who succeeded in spite of the obstacles in front of them—Helen Keller, Amelia Earhart, Margaret Bourke-White. I wondered what their lives were like. I wondered what shaped their hopes and dreams. I wondered if they were anything like me. With every book, I began to believe that if they could do something, maybe I could too. I especially loved reading about daring women who were dismissed and underestimated simply because they were women, yet made an indelible mark in the world.
Seven Picture Books About Women Who Dared
Here are seven of my favorite picture books biographies about women who dared to reach for their dreams:
1. Away with Words: The Daring Story of Isabella Bird by Lori Mortensen, illustrated by Kristy Caldwell
“Isabella Bird was like a wild vine stuck in a too-small pot. She needed more room. She had to get out. She had to explore.”
Exploring was easier said than done in Victorian England. But Isabella persisted, and with each journey, she breathed in new ways to see and describe everything around her. First, out in the English countryside on her father’s horse. Then, off to America, Africa, Asia, Australia, and more.
Daring Isabella, the first female member of the Royal Geographical Society, challenged society’s boundaries for women and wrote 10 bestselling books about her explorations. “No man,” she once declared, “now ever says of any difficult thing that I could not do it.” [picture book biography, ages 4 and up]
2. Ruth Law Thrills a Nation by Don Brown
Don Brown is one of my favorite picture book biographers. In this 1916 story, a young woman named Ruth Law attempted to fly from Chicago to New York City in one day—something no one else had ever done. This is the story of that daring attempt. The rich and unique details Brown includes makes her story soar to life. [picture book biography, ages 6 and up]
3. Luna & Me, The True Story of a Girl Who Lived in a Tree to Save a Forest by Jenny Sue Kostecki Shaw
Would you live in a tree for two years to save it? That’s what a woman named Julia did to save an ancient redwood. If she didn’t, loggers would cut down one of the oldest, tallest, and largest trees in the world. [picture book biography, ages 5 and up]
4. Alice Ramsey’s Grand Adventure by Don Brown
Another Don Brown favorite, this story chronicles the journey of the first woman to drive across America in 1909. When twenty-two-year-old Alice Ramsey climbs behind the wheel of a Maxwell touring car and heads for San Francisco, she has many adventures along the way. Brown’s attention to detail and rambling watercolors draws the reader into her journey as if they were riding along with her. [picture book biography, ages 4 and up]
5. Mrs. Harkness and the Panda written by Alicia Potter, illustrated by Melissa Sweet
Ruth Harkness faced an impossible task. In 1934, she inherited an expedition from her explorer husband to bring back a panda from China. She wasn’t an explorer. She’d never seen a panda. But that’s exactly what she sets out to do. [picture book biography, ages 5 and up]
6. Uncommon Traveler: Mary Kingsley in Africa by Don Brown
Mary Kingsley, like Isabella Bird, lived during the Victorian era. In this book, Brown does a wonderful job of opening a window into Mary Kingsley’s lonely life before she embarks on her own extraordinary journey to Africa. [picture book biography, ages 4 and up]
7. Me … Jane by Patrick McDonnell
Unlike some of the other picture books I’ve included here where the subject scales mountains or soars across the country in a rumbling plane, this book takes the reader on a gentle journey that shows how Jane Goodall became Jane Goodall and followed her heart to chimpanzees in Africa. [picture book biography, ages 4 and up]
2 Book Giveaway of Away with Words: The Daring Story of Isabella Bird
We are giving away 2 copies of her book, Away with Words: The Daring Story of Isabella Bird. Please fill out the Rafflecopter below to enter. We an only ship to U.S. addresses.
Lori Mortensen is an award-winning children’s book author of more than 100 books and over 500 stories and articles. Recent picture book releases include, Away with Words, The Daring Story of Isabella Bird (Peachtree Publishers), If Wendell Had a Walrus (Henry Holt), Chicken Lily, (Henry Holt), Mousequerade Ball (Bloomsbury) illustrated by New York Times bestselling illustrator Betsy Lewin, and Cowpoke Clyde Rides the Range (Clarion) a sequel to Cowpoke Clyde & Dirty Dawg, one of Amazon’s best picture books of 2013.
To examine any book more closely at Amazon, please click on image of book.
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p.s. Related posts:
My Favorite #WomensHistoryMonth Books for Kids
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Fabulous Flying Females: Women Aviators Books for Kids
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Jane Goodall: Women’s History Month
Changing the Game: Michelle Wie
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Follow PragmaticMom’s board Multicultural Books for Kids on Pinterest.
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My books:
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
We Sing from the Heart: How the Slants® Took Their Fight for Free Speech to the Supreme Court
- ALSC Notable Children’s Book
- Orbis Pictus Recommended Book for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children
- California Eureka Non-Fiction Award Honor Book
- Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People Winner (from National Council for the Social Studies and Children’s Book Council)
- Junior Library Guild Gold Selection
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Barefoot Books / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Food for the Future: Sustainable Farms Around the World
- ⭐ Starred review from School Library Journal!
- Junior Library Guild Gold selection
- Massachusetts Book Award Long List
- dPICTUS 100 Outstanding Picture Books of 2023
- Chicago Library’s Best of the Best
- 2023 INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist
- Green Earth Book Award Long List
- Nautilus Silver Winner, Nonfiction Children’s Picture Book
- Imagination Soup’s 35 Best Nonfiction Books of 2023 for Kids
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Bank Street College’s The Best Children’s Books of the Year
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
I have a few favorites, the biography of Amelia Earhart is one of them.
She’s a wonderful subject!
Amelia Earhart is a wonderful subject.
Some wonderful new-to-me picture book biographies to celebrate Women’s History Month. Thanks for sharing!
I would recommend the following:
1) Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s Fastest Woman by Kathleen Krull and David Diaz
2) Swimming with Sharks: The Daring Discoveries of Eugenie Clark
by Heather Lang and Jordi Solano
and 3) Nobody Owns The Sky: The Story Of Brave Bessie Coleman by Reeve Lindbergh and Pamela Paparone
Thank you for the great choices to check out.
I’ve always been fascinated by Jane Goodall so Me … Jane by Patrick McDonnell is on my to-read list now.
What a wonderful list of powerful women. I love how picture book biographies introduce us to so many amazing people and widen the gamut of role models available to children.
Thanks for highlighting these books! I’m only familiar with Lori Mortensen’s, so I look forward to checking the others out. I’m especially interested in the one about Jane Goodall.
Thanks, Linda. The Jane Goodall book is wonderful.
Me, Jane remains one of my all-time favorite picture books. I just love it!! Congrats, Lori! Looking forward to reading your book!
Thanks, M. Gianferrari. I appreciate your comment. 🙂
I really like “Sonia Sotomayor, a judge grows in the Bronx” by Jonah Winter. It has a bilingual format, lovely illustrations, and is told in a very warm way, with an appreciation for the family that nurtured her and the neighborhood in which she grew up.
Rock the boat! I love these books about amazing movers and shakers! They make the world so exciting!