{"id":59635,"date":"2025-10-03T17:36:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T17:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/59635\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T17:36:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T17:36:07","slug":"fifteen-books-to-help-children-learn-about-womens-place-in-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/59635\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifteen books to help children learn about women\u2019s place in history"},"content":{"rendered":"

Research by charity End Sexism in Schools has found that over half of history lessons delivered to children aged 11 to 14 in England feature no women at all<\/a>. With the government set to allocate funding to boost the provision of school libraries<\/a>, here are some books \u2013 for a range of ages \u2013 to open young eyes to women\u2019s lives, experiences and marginalisation in our past.<\/p>\n

Books that strike a balance between being age appropriate, featuring rich, well-researched context and capturing the attention are top of my list. If they focus on lesser-known women in history, all the better. <\/p>\n

For primary school children, biographical collections dominate the field. Take Kate Pankhurst\u2019s Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World<\/a>. This book introduces young historians to a host of inspiring women from different ethnicities and backgrounds, while carefully setting out the circumstances and barriers that each woman faced in her time and place. The cartoon illustrations and accessible format of the text are a sure-fire classroom pleaser. <\/p>\n

Kay Woodward\u2019s What Would She Do? Advice from Iconic Women in History<\/a> does a similar job for children aged around nine upwards, but with an added participatory element. It presents readers with the real-life dilemmas that the iconic women faced and encourages empathetic problem solving \u2013 what would she do? It also underscores the importance of resilience. <\/p>\n

Vashti Harrison\u2019s Little Leaders. Bold Women in Black History<\/a> is an excellent choice. Meanwhile Rachel Ignotofsky\u2019s Women in Science<\/a> introduces young readers to women of diverse backgrounds, from antiquity to the 20th century, who have made their mark in maths, science and technology. <\/p>\n

\"Children<\/p>\n

Biography anthologies introduce children to a wide range of historical figures.
\n Twinsterphoto\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/p>\n

Along with the books compiling sketches of notable women\u2019s lives, there are growing numbers of detailed biographies for primary school children that illuminate women\u2019s place in the past. In the mainstream, there\u2019s the Little People, Big Dreams<\/a> series. My favourites feature architect Zaha Hadid<\/a>, singer Aretha Franklin<\/a> and artist Louise Bourgeois<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Particularly engaging historical biographies for children include Counting on Katherine<\/a>, the story of Katherine Johnson, an African-American mathematician whose orbital calculations were instrumental in early US space missions. Kathleen Krull\u2019s inspirational story of American lawyer and Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg<\/a> also deserves a mention, along with Haydn Kaye\u2019s book on the British suffragist pioneer Emmeline Pankhurst<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Women\u2019s rights<\/p>\n

My own research<\/a> includes a focus on early 20th-century feminist activism. I\u2019ve read Kay Barnham\u2019s Women\u2019s Rights and Suffrage<\/a> with my six year old. It examines women\u2019s historical legal status and political resistance from a global perspective. Then there\u2019s David Roberts\u2019 beautifully illustrated Suffragette: The Battle for Equality<\/a> and Susan Campbell Bartoletti\u2019s How Women Won the Vote<\/a>. These books document the key ideologies and objectives of Edwardian British suffragism. <\/p>\n

But what about the ordinary women of history, those of us who did not crusade or trailblaze \u2013 or at least not in public? Sadly, few books aimed at primary school children address this question head on. However, there is hope on the horizon for teens. <\/p>\n

My 13-year-old daughter\u2019s current favourite book is the teen edition of Philippa Gregory\u2019s Normal Women. Making History for 900 Years<\/a>. Gregory gives a detailed account of the lives of a diverse array of women over this broad time period in English history, highlighting the role of patriarchy and women\u2019s subjugation in everyday life. With accessible language, relatable stories and illustrations, Normal Women is a surefire hit with older children trying to make sense of their place in the world. <\/p>\n

Kate Mosse\u2019s Feminist History for Every Day of the Year<\/a> is also a captivating read, supplementing the multi-biography of notable women format with relative unknowns, for an older audience. <\/p>\n

This kind of work, which goes beyond celebrating the famous few and sets out to write women back into the past, represents real progress in historical works for the next generation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Research by charity End Sexism in Schools has found that over half of history lessons delivered to children…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[288,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-59635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}