My daughter generally needs more time to get over her fears. I have been worried sick & even lost sleep over how easily she scares. I believe this world needs courage, especially in women.(Maybe, I am extrapolating my experience and surroundings when growing up a lot more than I should, I don’t know)
A cousin gifted my daughter a book,Good night stories for rebel girls by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo. My daughter was too young when she got the book to understand the stories. Out of curiosity, I started reading it and loved it. The nice portraits of the women and the stories of their lives and struggles taught me humility. They brought out the privileges that I took for granted and painted me a picture of how far women have come and how much more there is to cover.
When she was ready, I introduced the book to my daughter by reading it as her bedtime story and now it is her “Brave girls” story time every night before bed. I am still not sure about how much inspiration or influence she is deriving from the book. However, I feel that my wish to show her different times and lives, how it is possible to do anything and become anyone if she sets her mind to it, is fulfilled to some extent. I also feel she is processing and sometimes even absorbing some courage from these stories as she understands them to be accounts of real women who once lived or are still living.
The book has one page accounts about women from different time periods and recounts what each of them went through to do what was considered impossible at that time. Starting from Ada Lovelace, ranging through Amelia Earhart, Cleopatra, Florence Nightingale, Rani Lakshmi Bai, Grace Hopper and many more, the book talks of a hundred brilliant women who broke stereotypes and absurd rules to do what they wanted to do but were told otherwise and were discouraged in every possible way.
It’s been a huge inspiration to me to read about these women and think of the strength they possessed. I hope these stories inspire my daughter and many more girls out there to gather their strength, the strength that they have but are not aware of. I consider this an excellent gift to anyone but more so for 5 – 10 year old girls.
Here’s to strong women, may we know them, may we be them. may we raise them!
Until later 🙂
