Women's History Month kickoff

One of my goals for this year was to make a foray into women's history, in addition to our text reading of Story of the World. To be fancy and official, I'm calling it our Women's History Project. My sister reminded me that March is Women's History Month, so hey! Let's jump right in!

We started on Monday with Girls Who Choose God by Bethany Brady Spalding and McArthur Krishna. It's appropriate for all Bible-believing faiths, whatever your flavor of Christianity is. (Heck, even if you think the Bible is total bunk, this book still teaches good human principles.) It gives brief profiles of women of the Bible and I especially like that at the end of each section, it asks the readers a question about their own personal experiences that may be similar to the Biblical women. For example, Esther defended her people against Haman - "when have you made a choice to stand up for others?" It's written very simply for children but the discussion prompts are fabulous for any age group, including adults. 

For further information for the grownups, an interview with Spalding is on the Mormon Women Project. This is the money quote for me: 

It's easy to complain; it is much more challenging - but also more life-giving - to do something to solve problems. Using creativity and compassion, I've had a lot of fun trying to change the world around me into a better place. I like to think of myself as a change-maker.

Definitely a fantastic thing to teach and reinforce to all of our kids, boys and girls. And what else is Women's History Month, including a discussion of women in the Bible, than teaching children about women who were and continue to be change-makers.

Tuesday's book selection was A is for Abigail: An Almanac of Amazing American Women by Lynne Cheney. I love the illustrations and the rapid-fire name name name name, as well as the organization into categories. It's not just 26 women - one for each letter. There are hundreds of names - B is for Elizabeth Blackwell and other women in the medical field, regardless of their initials. E is for educators. And on it goes. It's a good jumping off point to give you ideas of who to read about in the first place, including a lot of people you may not have heard about before.

Today, we started reading about individuals, which we'll continue for the rest of the year but with a special focus during this month. Last month, before it connected in my brain about Women's History Month, we read about Maria Tallchief, the first Native American to be a prima ballerina. Today was the scientist Jane Goodall.

And on the side, I'm doing my own women's history study. I'm finishing a memoir by Betty MacDonald, the author who wrote the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books - she's one of the most descriptive writers I've ever read, seriously. I also started Personal History, by Katharine Graham. I wouldn't call it a memoir - it's more scholarly than that. Definitely in the "autobiography" category. And I watched a biography.com episode about Sandra Day O'Connor. My personal reading list is growing.