feminist books

It's hard to find smart books for kids that are heavy on the good female characters but light on the Disney princesses. A part of the American Library Association called the Amelia Bloomer Project tackled the tough job of sorting through all the young adult books published in 2012 and naming their ten favorite picks.  

The books were selected based on their feminist themes, excellence in writing, appealing format, and age appropriateness. The full list is below the cut, but here's a snapshot: 

Anyone have any additions to the list or opinions on these? We covered Code Name Verity in December, with BiblioBitch Katie Presley declaring it like the Hunger Games, but much better. As someone without kids, the only one I've flipped through is the Rookie yearbook, which I found surprisingly great. It's a collection of photo essays, interviews, and diaries that my 12-year-old self would have found engrossing, inspring, and comforting. 

"Rave On" is the Page Turner series that asks feminist writers, artists, musicians, activists, leaders, and scholars to talk about a book that completely rocked their world. Today we feature musician and singer-songwriter Joan Wasser, of Joan as Police Woman, on Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations, by bell hooks.

Outlaw Culture taught me to change the way I thought about everything. I first read it when it was released in 1994 because it had a chapter about Madonna and how she turned her back on her original, daring woman image and ultimately gave into the little-girl, sex-kitten status quo.

I had written essays on Madonna when I was in high school, horrified because my ideas of empowered women were Siouxsie Sioux and Exene Cervenka. I was already a massive music fan and felt confused by Madonna’s brazenly sexual image (and unshaven underarms) in combination with her music, which I considered, at the time, totally useless fluff. I was thrilled to find someone else who shared my distaste for her, like hooks did, albeit in a completely different way.

"Rave On" is the Page Turner series that asks feminist writers, artists, musicians, activists, leaders, and scholars to talk about a book that completely rocked their world. Today we feature writer Nona Willis Aronowitz on Rubyfruit Jungle, by Rita Mae Brown.

I was in the midst of a family vacation when I flopped on my parents’ bed and gave my mom puppy-dog eyes. "I’m bored," I whined. "I finished all my magazines. My Discman is out of batteries. And there’s no TV here!"

My mother, feminist writer Ellen Willis, smiled knowingly and dug through her book collection. "Here," she said, handing me a tattered copy of Rita Mae Brown’s semi-autobiographical Rubyfruit Jungle. "I promise you’ll love this."

"Rave On" is the Page Turner series that asks feminist writers, artists, musicians, activists, leaders, and scholars to talk about a book that completely rocked their world. Today we feature FBomb founder and teenage feminist Julie Zeilinger on Full Frontal Feminism, by Jessica Valenti.

Many books have shaped my feminist identity. Gloria Steinem’s Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions really helped shape my feminist voice and helped me understand where the movement had been before my generation even existed. Other books, such as Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation, showed me that youth has always been a part of feminism, recognized or not.

But the book that really prompted me to begin my own feminist journey was Jessica Valenti’s Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters.

Peggy Orenstein grapples with it and so do many other feminist mamas, aunts, sisters, cousins, dads and uncles: what to buy your girl-feminist. A Bitch reader named Maura recently wrote to us asking readers to weigh in about the "best books for budding feminists," especially six- and eight-year-old girls.

So, please take two seconds to channel your feminist girl-self and talk about the fiction that made you feel like you could do anything and become anyone.

I asked Kimmie David, one of the owners of Bluestockings—the radical bookstore, fair trade cafe, and activist center in the Lower East Side of Manhattan—to share her picks for the best feminist fiction or nonfiction books for girls. Read on for her recommendations!

"Rave On" is the Page Turner series that asks feminist writers, artists, musicians, activists, leaders, and scholars to talk about a book that completely rocked their world. Today we feature Estelle Freedman, Ph.D., the Robinson Professor in U.S. History at Stanford University, on Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, by Susan Brownmiller. Read on for more!

"Rave On" is the Page Turner series that asks feminist writers, artists, musicians, activists, leaders, and scholars to talk about a book that completely rocked their world. Today we feature make/shift co-editor and copublisher Jessica Hoffmann on Women, Race, and Class, by Angela Y. Davis. Read on for more!

Welcome to Page Turner, a new blog on feminism and books here at Bitch's online headquarters. Here's my goal with Page Turner: to make it a collaboration between you, Bitch's readers, and me, your biblio-obsessed blogger. Page Turner is all about our love of books and feminisms, and all the many ways we interact with authors and their work in our daily lives. Read on for more!

"Rave On" is the Page Turner series that asks feminist writers, artists, musicians, activists, leaders, and scholars to talk about a book that completely rocked their world. This edition features writer, performer, activist, and biologist Julia Serano on Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-75, by Alice Echols. Read on for more!

Welcome to "Rave On," a new Page Turner series that asks feminist writers, artists, musicians, activists, leaders, and scholars to talk about a book that completely rocked their world. Our series kicks off with writer Jennifer Baumgardner, who raves about The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade, by Ann Fessler. Read on for more!