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Guys DO Read—and Some of That
Reading Should Be about Gals
I
n 2001, Jon Scieszka founded a
literacy initiative for boys called Guys
Read. As part of that initiative, he
produced collections of short stories,
comics, poems and more—all aimed at
young male readers (Guys write, 2008).
Scieszka contends that a lot of boys “are
not all that crazy about reading,” and that
teachers and librarians must help them
find what they want to read.
Our graduate class in children’s literature salutes Scieszka’s advocacy of literacy but also remembers that if we turn back the historical clock
far enough, only guys could read, were taught to
read, or had access to texts.
In our attempt to “remember the ladies,” we
compiled a set of engaging (and lauded) picturebooks, informational texts, historical fiction, and
biography about remarkable girls in sports, politics, science and the arts—accounts so exciting
that guys should demand to read them and then
discuss issues of access and equity.
Althea Gibson broke the color barrier when
she won the Wimbledon championship in 1957.
And, as Sue Stauffacher (2007) describes in Nothing but Trouble: The Story of Althea Gibson, she was
also “the tallest, wildest tomboy in the history of
Harlem” (n.p.). By inspecting two picturebook
accounts of Althea Gibson’s life (the second
by Karen Deans, titled Playing to Win [2007]),
readers can compare how two author/illustrator
teams assign significance to cultural, historic, and
personal events in an extraordinary woman’s life.
In Basketball Belles: How Two Teams and One
Scrappy Player Put Women’s Hoops on the Map, Sue
Macy (2011) narrates the first women’s college
basketball game from the perspective of “scrappy” Stanford guard, Agnes Morley. Matt Collins’s paintings add movement and energy to the
story of this historic 1896 game. Each text has
authors’ notes, references, and other supporting
documentation. These titles make excellent first
steps toward lengthier treatments, such as the
compelling information text, Let Me Play: The
Story of Title IX: The Law that Changed the Future
of Girls in America (Blumenthal, 2005).
Pioneering in Sports
Sitting Down and Standing Up
for Civil Rights
In Babe Conquers the World, a scrapbook-like collection of family photos, quotes, and newspaper
accounts, Rich and Sharon Wallace (2014) unveil dimensions of Babe Didrikson Zaharias, the
Olympic hero who defied conventions to earn
her living in sports. Short, lively chapters capture
Babe’s accomplishments and trials, as well as the
challenges she faced.
Rob Shone and Nik Spender’s (2007) graphic
novel, Rosa Parks: The Life of a Civil Rights Heroine offers a refreshing look at an oft-told story.
Instead of beginning with the Montgomery Bus
Boycott, the authors introduce a ten-year-old
Rosa, and follow her into adulthood, providing a
fuller sense of her personal history and developing identity. By spanning Rosa’s life, Shone and
Copyright © 2016 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.
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Spender challenge the myth of a weary working
woman, too tired to give up her bus seat. And,
despite the legal triumphs of Rosa’s story, the
authors remind us that the fight for equality is
on-going. Juxtaposing this graphic novel with
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (Hoose,
2009), the story of an African American high
school junior who defied the Montgomery Bus
Code, provides interesting insight into the historical treatments of the two women activists.
In The Girl from the Tar Paper School: Barbara
Rose Johns and the Advent of the Civil Rights Movement, author Teri Kanefield, uses photographs
and court documents to tell the story of a teen’s
nonviolent protest against unequal conditions in
her 1951 segregated school.
Duncan Tonatiuh’s (2014), Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight
for Desegregation brings the story of California
school integration to life through illustration.
For a short chapter book companion text, turn to
Sylvia & Aki (Conkling, 2011).
Learning Big Things
In The Watcher: Jane Goodall’s Life with the
Chimps (2011), Jeanette Winter partners text and
illustrations to story Goodall’s life—from childhood to her ongoing advocacy of endangered
primates and their habitats. Readers can compare Winter’s book with Patrick McDonnell’s
more whimsical biography, Me . . . Jane (2011),
focusing on how authors/illustrators create tone
through pictures and words.
Catherine Thimmesh’s Girls Think of Everything (2000), illustrated by Melissa Sweet,
introduces twelve female inventors and their
ingenious inventions—ranging from the recipe
for chocolate chip cookies to “space bumpers.”
Thimmesh weaves direct quotes into these stories, urging young people to invent.
Young readers will relish Temple Grandin:
How the Girl Who Loved Cows Embraced Autism
and Changed the World (Montgomery, 2012), a
biography of Dr. Grandin who used her knowledge of farm animals and her own autism to design cruelty-free treatment of livestock. This text
is rich with personal photos and meticulous diagrams, and includes a list of resources.
75
Warriors in Skirts and Shirts
The Taxing Case of the Cows: A True Story of Suffrage (Van Rynbach & Shea, 2010) chronicles
the lives of nineteenth-century sisters Abby and
Julia Smith, who fought for fairness in property
tax laws for women. Consider pairing this story
with If You Lived When Women Won Their Rights
(Kamma, 2008), which introduces gender issues
and inequities beginning with the American Revolution in a unique question-and-answer format.
Michelle Merkel and illustrator Melissa
Sweet follow an immigrant girl working under
deplorable factory conditions in Brave Girl: Clara
and the Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike of 1909 (2013).
Through Clara, readers experience the tenacity
and sacrifice of members of the labor movement.
Brave Girl provides lead-in to the compelling
Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its
Legacy (Marrin, 2011).
In Marching with Aunt Susan, Claire Rudolf
Murphy (2011) offers a fictionalized story of a
young girl’s meeting with Susan B. Anthony. Alexandra Wallner traces Anthony’s life en route
to “the cause” in Susan B. Anthony (2012), easily paired with Penny Colman’s (2011) thoughtful information text, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and
Susan B. Anthony: A Friendship that Changed the
World.
Contributing through the Arts
Pam Muñoz Ryan’s (2002) When Marian Sang,
masterfully illustrated by Brian Selznick, introduces the life of Marian Anderson—the singer
who brought issues of racism, prejudice, and civil
rights to center stage. Russell Freedman’s (2004)
biography, The Voice that Challenged a Nation:
Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights
provides an extensive collection of artifacts from
Anderson’s life, including the artist’s historic
outdoor performance on the steps of the Lincoln
Memorial in 1939.
As dancer Martha Graham worked to choreograph “her ballet,” as told in Ballet for Martha:
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Making Appalachian Spring (Greenberg & Jordan, 2010), “She screams. She yells. She throws a
shoe” (p. 17). Readers will experience Graham’s
frustrations and passion as she pursued perfection in her art.
Daring to Fly, Daring to Try
In Talkin’ About Bessie: The Story of Aviator Elizabeth Coleman, Nikki Grimes (2002) writes 21 fictional eulogies in free verse to tell the story of
the first African American woman pilot, drawing
from friends’ and relatives’ oral histories and testimonies. Co-authors Louise Borden and Mary
Kay Kroeger (2004)’s compelling biography of
Coleman, Fly High! The Story of Bessie Coleman
serves as a perfect companion to Grimes’s telling
of Coleman’s story.
Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of
Amelia Earhart by Candace Fleming (2011) and
Amelia Earhart: The Legend of the Lost Aviator by
Shelley Tanaka (2008) capture details of Amelia
Earhart’s life from childhood until her plane disappeared. Both authors include artifacts and photographs to contextualize the life.
Caroline and Nettie La Rague’s death-defying stunts on a looped track broke ground for
female race-car drivers in 1908. In Women Daredevils: Thrills, Chills, and Frills, Julia Cummins
(2008) recounts the La Rague sisters’ feats, while
honoring other courageous women who lived
between 1880 and 1929. Queen of the Falls (Van
Allsburg, 2011) tells the dramatic story of Annie
Edson Taylor, the first person to survive a drop
over Niagara Falls in a barrel—at 63 years of age.
The true story of Ida Lewis, America’s first
female lighthouse keeper, is one of stunning and
subtle courage, told beautifully by Marissa Moss
(2011) in The Bravest Woman in America. Young
Ida Lewis takes over a lighthouse when her father
became ill and is credited with saving eighteen
lives.
Feats of derring-do, heroism, and quiet courage belong to all of us and can make compelling
reads for everyone.
References
Chin-Lee, C. (2005). From Amelia to Zora. Illus. by M.
Halsey & S. Addy. Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge.
Colman, P. (2000). Girls: A history of growing up female
in America. New York, NY: Scholastic.
Harness, C. (2003). Remember the ladies: 100 great
American Women. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Scieszka, J. (Ed.) (2008). Guys write for guys read. New
York, NY: Viking.
Pioneering in Sports
Blumenthal, K. (2005). Let me play: The story of Title
IX: The law that changed the future of girls in
America. New York, NY: Atheneum.
Deans, K. (2007). Playing to win: The story of Althea
Gibson. Illus. by E. Brown. New York, NY: Holiday
House.
Macy, S. (2011). Basketball belles: How two teams and
one scrappy player put women’s hoops on the map.
Illus. by M.Collins. New York, NY: Holiday
House.
Stauffacher, S. (2007). Nothing but trouble: The story of
Althea Gibson. Illus. by G. Couch. New York, NY:
Alfred A. Knopf.
Wallace, R., & Wallace, S. (2014). Babe conquers the
Connections from readwritethink
Books for teen girls are a big business, but it’s not always easy to identify titles that depict strong and independent girl
characters. Feminist books for teens, celebrated each year on the ALA’s Amelia Bloomer list, highlight the power girls
have to chart the course of their own lives. In this podcast episode from ReadWriteThink.org, you’ll hear about a variety
of feminist books for teens—including works of realistic fiction as well as fantasy, biography, historical fiction, and satire.
http://bit.ly/20KMAHn
Lisa Storm Fink
www.ReadWriteThink.org
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world: The legendary life of Babe Didrikson Zaharias. Honesdale, PA: Calkins Creek.
Sitting Down and Standing Up for
Civil Rights
Conkling, W. (2011). Sylvia & Aki. Berkeley, CA:
Tricycle Press.
Hoose, P. (2009). Claudette Colvin: Twice toward justice.
New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Kanefield, T. (2014). The girl from the tar paper school:
Barbara Rose Johns and the advent of the Civil
Rights Movement. New York, NY: Abrams.
Shone, R. (2006). Rosa Parks: The life of a civil rights
heroine. Illus. by N. Spender. New York, NY:
Rosen.
Tonatiuh, D. (2014). Separate is never equal: Sylvia
Mendez and her family’s fight for desegregation.
New York, NY: Abrams.
Learning Big Things
McDonnell, P. (2011). Me . . . Jane. New York, NY:
Little, Brown.
Montgomery, S. (2012). Temple Grandin: How the girl
who loved cows embraced autism and changed the
world. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin.
Thimmesh, C. (2000). Girls think of everything: Stories
of ingenious inventions by women. Illus. by M.
Sweet. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin.
Winter, J. (2011). The watcher: Jane Goodall’s life with
the chimps. New York, NY: Schwartz & Wade.
Warriors in Skirts and Shirts
Colman, P. (2011). Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan
B. Anthony: A friendship that changed the world.
New York, NY: Henry Holt.
Kamma, A. (2008). If you lived when women won their
rights. Illus. by P. Johnson. New York, NY:
Scholastic.
Marrin, A. (2011). Flesh and blood so cheap: The Triangle
fire and its legacy. New York, NY: Knopf.
Merkel, M. (2013). Brave girl: Clara and the shirtwaist
makers’ strike of 1909. Illus. by M. Sweet. New
York, NY: Balzer and Bray.
77
Murphy, C. (2011). Marching with Aunt Susan: Susan
B. Anthony and the fight for women’s suffrage. Illus.
by S. Schuett. Atlanta, GA: Peachtree.
Van Rynbach, I., & Shea, P. D. (2010). The taxing case
of the cows: A true story of suffrage. New York, NY:
Clarion.
Wallner, A. (2012). Susan B. Anthony. New York, NY:
Holiday House.
Contributing through the Arts
Freedman, R. (2004). The voice that challenged a nation:
Marian Anderson and the struggle for equal rights.
New York, NY: Clarion.
Greenberg, J., & Jordan, S. (2010). Ballet for Martha:
Making Appalachian Spring. Illus. by B. Floca.
New York, NY: Roaring Brook.
Ryan, P. M. (2002). When Marian sang: The true recital
of Marian Anderson. Illus. by B. Selznick. New
York, NY: Scholastic.
Daring to Fly, Daring to Try
Borden, L., & Kroeger M. K. (2001). Fly high! The story
of Bessie Coleman. Illus. by T. Flavin. New York,
NY: Simon and Schuster.
Cummins, J. (2008). Women daredevils: Thrills, chills,
and frills. Illus. by C. Harness. New York, NY:
Dutton.
Fleming, C. (2011). Amelia lost: The life and disappearance of Amelia Earhart. New York, NY: Random
House.
Grimes, N. (2002). Talkin’ about Bessie: The story of
aviator Elizabeth Coleman. Illus. by E. B. Lewis.
New York, NY: Scholastic.
Moss, M. (2011). The bravest woman in America. Illus.
by A. U’Ren. New York, NY: Random/Tricycle.
Tanaka, S. (2008). Amelia Earhart: The legend of the lost
aviator. Illus. by D. Craig. New York, NY: Abrams.
Van Allsburg, C. (2011). Queen of the falls. New York,
NY: Houghton Mifflin.
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