It’s been nearly a decade since Elena Favilli and co-author Francesca Cavallo published the first volume of Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls. They were inspired by research that showed vast inequalities in the way boys and girls were portrayed in children’s literature — boys as heroes and adventurers, and girls as princesses or damsels in distress.
So they set out to tell a different story, where women are scientists, explorers, athletes, astronauts, and anything else they want to be.
Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls became a contemporary classic. It’s celebrating its 10th anniversary with an all-new edition that features 22 new stories about heroic modern women, including environmental activist Greta Thunberg, singer/songwriter Taylor Swift and biochemist Katalin Kariko, who won the Nobel Prize for her work in developing the COVID-19 vaccine.
The simply written profiles are perfect as a bedtime story, and they’re accompanied by gorgeous full-color illustrations created by female artists from all over the world. Each profile includes where and when the woman was born, how she blazed a trail in her field, and a memorable quote. Julia Child’s, for example, says, “A party without a cake is just a meeting.”
The Rebel Girls anthology makes a great gift for a new baby girl, and this new edition offers even more inspiring stories. Readers will marvel at the accomplishments of well-known women like Amelia Earhart, and lesser-known ones like the Black Mambas of South Africa, a group of women who patrol nature preserves and protect endangered animals.
So many women’s stories are lost to history. This book makes sure girls grow up knowing some of them.
