Celebrating girls and women

The Amelia Bloomer Project is not nearly as well known as some other ALA awards for children's book, but it's a good source for learning about books with a feminist view. Sponsored by the Feminist Task Force of ALA, the 2009 list has just been released. Books that celebrate the achievements of girls and women are not seen today as quite so important as they were twenty years ago, but as the introduction to this list points out, there have been many backward steps for women in recent years. Americans may believe feminist principles no longer need to be defended because everyone accepts them, but as many female veterans of the Armed Forces will tell you, the struggle for equal treatment is ongoing even in this country. In Iraq and Afghanistan, women have lost rights they enjoyed earlier, and these changes ripple around the world. Many new immigrants in the United States come from groups which do not consider women equal to men and librarians owe it to these girls as well as to all others to continue offering strong stories and histories of girls and women. Why not take this list and check your local library to see how many are available? The results will tell you a lot about your community and the future of women.