Tomatoes, what more could you have done with your life if you’d been encouraged in your youth to be…an astronaut, a head chef, a professional athlete, the President? Move over, darling Doris Day (though she is not only a gifted actress and singer but a serious animal activist) because STEM these days is no longer a reference to a girl’s beautiful leg.  Celebrate International Day of the Girl (October 11) and give a young lady you know any one of these new children’s books of big, demanding, no-longer-impossible dreams and see where she goes.

After their bestsellers Rosie Revere, Engineer and Iggy Peck, Architect, author Andrea Beaty and illustrator David Roberts are really exploding tired, old assumptions in Ada Twist, Scientist. This book is a celebration of STEM, perseverance, and passion. Age Range: 5 – 7 years.  Get the book.

Girls are so often told in school and even at home to “Be nice!” Accommodating and compromising are held up as positive attributes. Well, one celebrated Supreme Court justice doesn’t think so. Introduce a girl to Ruth Bader Ginsburg in I Dissent and watch out! She may learn to speak her mind as rigorously as the Notorious R.B.G.  Age Level: 4 – 8.  Get the book.

Are girls really paying attention to this election? I hope so, but we don’t want them to ignore the pioneers of women’s equality. Around America to Win the Vote, is a story that will show them literally how far we’ve had to come.  Age Range: 5 – 8 years.  Get the book.