33 Things Every Girl Should Know About Women's History: From Suffragettes to Skirt Lengths to the E.R.A.

Did you know that as recently as 1972, male employees could legally be paid twice as much as females for doing the same job? Or that in the 1992 edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, only 5.5 percent of the quoted lines were written by women? It's easy now to be complacent about such rights as voting, equal pay for men and women, education, even speaking. But it wasn't so long ago that women were fighting--sometimes with their lives--for these rights. And, as this rabble-rousing collection of essays, poems, drama, photos, illustrations, and stories reveals, the many "firsts" in history (or "herstory") are entirely relevant to the lives of girls and women today. Gathered by Tonya Bolden, editor of 33 Things Every Girl Should Know and Hands On! 33 More Things Every Girl Should Know, the exuberant voices in this volume encourage young women to empower themselves with knowledge ("it's the ultimate girl power"). Girls will learn about "Beauty" "Why Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) Still Rules," and how "Title IX Helped Level the Playing Field," by a diverse group of well-known and less familiar authors, including Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Patricia C. McKissack, Abigail Adams, and Ophira Edut. (Ages 12 and older) --Emilie Coulter

Tonya Bolden is the author of the children's book Through Loona's Door: A Tammy and Owen Adventure with Carte G. Woodson.  Her books for teenagers include the novels Mama, I Want to Sing (co-authored with Vy Higginsen) and Just Family; the anthology Rites of Passage: Stories About Growing Up by Black Writers from Around the World; and a collection of biographies of ten epic women, And Not Afraid to Dare.   Her books for grownups include The Book of African American Women: 150 Crusaders, Creators, and Uplifters .  She is a native New Yorker.