15 Empowering Books For Girls

From the moment they come into the world girls work just a little bit harder to construct a healthy sense of self. As mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and role models in their lives, we must help them find the way by offering them as many affirming messages as possible. We can do this with our words and by our example; and also through their education and books they read!

Girls can read about heroines from the past and present. They can explore nonfiction books about famous female inventors or they can enjoy stories about everyday kids just being kids. Spy any of your favorites or any new ones you may have never heard of before?

1. Little Feminist Board Book Set

Mudpuppy’s Little Feminist Board Book Set is comprised of colorful illustrated portraits of real women who have made historical impact on the world. The books introduce children to these important people in history with images that are fun for youngsters and also realistic.

2. Rad American Women A-Z

Like all A-Z books, this one illustrates the alphabet—but instead of “A is for Apple”, A is for Angela—as in Angela Davis, the iconic political activist. B is for Billie Jean King, who shattered the glass ceiling of sports; C is for Carol Burnett, who defied assumptions about women in comedy

3. Rad Women Worldwide

Rad Women Worldwide tells fresh, engaging, and amazing tales of perseverance and radical success by pairing well-researched and riveting biographies with powerful and expressive cut-paper portraits.

4. Rad Girls Can

In Rad Girls Can, you’ll learn about a diverse group of young women who are living rad lives, whether excelling in male-dominated sports like boxing, rock climbing, or skateboarding; speaking out against injustice and discrimination; expressing themselves through dance, writing, and music; or advocating for girls around the world.

5. The Book of Awesome Women

“The Book of Awesome Women shares stories and triumphs that are not often mentioned in mainstream history and is something you absolutely need to check out….Reading this book filled me with happiness and I just felt so amazed by what the women within this book have accomplished.”

6. She Persisted

Chelsea Clinton introduces tiny feminists, mini activists and little kids who are ready to take on the world to thirteen inspirational women who never took no for an answer, and who always, inevitably and without fail, persisted.

7. Strong is the New Pretty 

Girls being fearless. Girls being silly. Girls being wild, stubborn, and proud. Girls whose faces are smeared with dirt and lit up with joy. So simple and yet so powerful, Strong Is the New Pretty celebrates, through more than 175 memorable photographs, the strength and spirit of girls being 100% themselves.

8. Girls Think of Everything

In kitchens and living rooms, in garages and labs and basements, even in converted chicken coops, women and girls have invented ingenious innovations that have made our lives simpler and better. Their creations are some of the most enduring (the windshield wiper) and best loved (the chocolate chip cookie). What inspired these women, and just how did they turn their ideas into realities?

9. I Believe In Myself

Here is a secret: all people, not just kids, wonder if they are good enough, strong enough, or fast enough at some point in their lives. Everyone wonders if he or she’ll be up to all the challenges life presents.

10. My First Book of Girl Power

A celebration of girl power for budding super heroines featuring beloved DC characters from Wonder Woman to Batgirl.

11. This Little Trailblazer 

Learn all about influential women who changed history in this engaging and colorful board book perfect for trailblazers-in-training!

12. When God Made You 

From early on, children are looking to discover their place in the world and longing to understand how their personalities, traits, and talents fit in. The assurance that they are deeply loved and a unique creation in our big universe is certain to help them spread their wings and fly.

13. Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History 

An important book for all ages, Little Leaders educates and inspires as it relates true stories of forty trailblazing black women in American history. Illuminating text paired with irresistible illustrations bring to life both iconic and lesser-known female figures of Black history such as abolitionist Sojourner Truth, pilot Bessie Coleman, chemist Alice Ball, politician Shirley Chisholm, mathematician Katherine Johnson, poet Maya Angelou, and filmmaker Julie Dash.

14. Lucia the Luchador

Lucía zips through the playground in her cape just like the boys, but when they tell her “girls can’t be superheroes,” suddenly she doesn’t feel so mighty. That’s when her beloved abuela reveals a dazzling secret: Lucía comes from a family of luchadoras, the bold and valiant women of the Mexican lucha libre tradition.

15. Funukkah Hanukkah Girl Doll and Illustrated Book

Each Funukkah kid comes with “the Story of Funukkah” book, their list of rules, and a magical backpack which magically (with a little help from the parents) holds the Shamash candle to be used later that evening for the lighting of the Menorah.