8th March International Women's Day

We always celebrate this day in our library and I have written about it on this blog several times before, but given the diatribe this week about children's picture books that was on a popular website I follow, I feel the need to recommend some picture books with female main characters that are certainly worth meeting. The posts were going on and on about how all the characters in the picture books for very young children, even if they were animals, were male, 'even the Gruffalo!' While I agree that, that may well be the case, and that 'he' is used more than 'she' in books, there is so much more available to children today than there used to be. The popularity of the series Little People Big Dreams by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara  proves that books about girls can be popular. They are among the most popular books borrowed from our Prep school library and many of the children have some copies of their own. Kate Pankhurst's Great Women series is also popular.

We keep popular series in boxes because Preschoolers want to be able to find their friends quickly. Most of the series do have male main characters, but there is Maisy and Angelina Ballerina (both mice),  Miffy, Eloise, Fancy Nancy and Pinkalicious and these are more popular than say, Pete the Cat; Splat the Cat; Scaredy Squirrel  and Grug.

For stand alone, any of these picture books have girls as the main character and are well worth searching out in your library. Happy International Women's Day!

• One Word From Sophia by Jim Averback and Yasmeen Ismail (See Nothing! and I'm a Girl! by Yasmeen Ismail)











• Pearl Power  by Mel Elliott (There are now three books about Pearl)













• Izzy Gizmo  by Pip Jones and Sara Ogilvie (There are now two books about Izzy)













• Dear Girl  by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Paris Rosenthal (See Amy's Uni the Unicorn books as well for a strong female main character)

• Where's Jamela? by Niki Daly (the five stories about Jamela who lives with her mother and grandmother give readers a very positive view of what women are capable of)