Those who know me know that raising strong girls who believe that they can do anything they set their hearts to, is a big priority in my life. If you haven’t already checked out A Mighty Girl, go check them out as soon as you are done reading this, as they are an amazing resource for great books. Our latest find from that site in an absolutely awesome book called My Name is Not Isabella.
The tagline to this book is “Just how big can a little girl dream?” The answer? To the moon and back. What is marvelous about this book, aside from the story itself, is that girls can get different things from this story at different ages.
The story is of a little girl named Isabella who wakes up one morning and tells her mom “my name is not Isabella.” The mom plays along and asks the little girl who she is. “I am Sally, the greatest, toughest astronaut who ever was.” As in Sally Ride, the first American woman to go into space in 1983. Each day Isabella wakes up with a new name and a new profession to go along with it, including the ever important job of “mommy.” At the end of the book, her mother puts her to sleep so she can dream “about who she would be tomorrow.”
What the kids don’t realize is that each time Isabella changes her name, she is naming a famous woman who has helped change our world. As a child matures, the back of the book has information on all of these women and definitions of the roles that helped make them special. My 6 year old and I were able to have a conversation about why these women were important. She can’t imagine a world where girls were not expected to go to school and when aspiring to a job outside of the home was not encouraged. We were also able to have a conversation about the activism of women like Rosa Parks and how seemingly small, incredibly brave, acts can make a huge impact in the world around us. This is also a great way to show girls that they can succeed in any job, even those that haven’t been typically dominated by women. It is great that my daughter has no clue that women haven’t been always welcomed with open arms to professions like medicine and science, but we need to keep it in her head that those are great jobs for anyone. Her current career choice is marine biologist, so we must be doing something right!
Jennifer Fosberry didn’t just write a great book for girls. For boys, there is a companion book called “My Name is Not Alexander.” It looks like a great book about men who changed the world.
Girls and boys can be anything that they want to be as long as we encourage them to dream big.
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