The first reference of its kind, Great Books for Girls is an invaluable list of more than six hundred titles--picture books, novels, mysteries, biographies, folktales, sports books, and more--that will encourage, challenge, and ultimately nurture in girls the strong qualities our culture so often suppresses. Kathleen Odean, a librarian and former member of the prestigious Caldecott and Newbery Award committees, has gathered and annotated a list of books starring bold, confident heroines for children from toddlers to age fourteen. Here are old favorites such as Eloise, Harriet the Spy, Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and Ramona the Pest; new inspirations such as Cinder Edna, Sheila Rae the Brave, Herculeah Jones, and Princess Smartypants; and real-life admirable women such as Eleanor of Aquitaine, Jane Goodall, Toni Morrison, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Helen Keller. In these books, girls and women are creative, capable, articulate, and intelligent, solving problems, facing challenges, resolving conflicts, and going on quests. They are not sidekicks or tokens, waiting to be rescued; they are doing the rescuing. Nor are they waiting for a male to provide a happy ending; they are fashioning their own stories and their own endings. Packed with expert guidance, Great Books for Girls is an essential volume that will give girls of all ages the power of hope.

Author Biography

Kathleen Odean has been a children's librarian for fifteen years, first in California and now at Moses Brown School, a Friends school in Providence, Rhode Island. She grew up in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, and graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Odean then lived in Berkeley, California for eight years, where she earned a Master's of Library and Information Science as well as an M.A. in Folklore at University of California. Her peers across the country recognize Odean as an expert in children's literature. She was recently elected to the Caldecott Award Committee by her fellow children's librarians and was also a member of the 1991 Newbery Award Committee. From 1991 through 1993, she served on the Notable Children's Book Committee of the American Library Association, a national committee of nine which evaluates all of the year's children's books. Odean has also been a reviewer of children's books for School Library Journal since 1985. The author of the groundbreaking work Great Books for Girls: More Than 600 Books to Inspire Today's Girls and Tomorrow's Women (Ballantine Books, 1997) and High Steppers, Fallen Angels, and Lollipops: Wall Street Slang (Henry Holt Owl Paperbacks, 1989) on the folklore and slang of the stock market, Odean has also done some free-lance writing. Odean has been talking about the importance of books in children's lives on NBC-TV's Today and with newspapers, local television and radio shows across the country. She lives in Barrington, Rhode Island, with her husband, Ross Cheit, a professor at Brown University.