March is Women's History Month: A Booklist

1.  Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation by Ari Folman, David Polonsky, Anne Frank: The only graphic biography of Anne Frank's diary that has been authorized by the Anne Frank Foundation and that uses text from the diary--it will introduce a new generation of young readers to this classic of Holocaust literature. This adaptation of Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl into a graphic version for a young readership, maintains the integrity and power of the original work. 

2. Ashes in the Snow by Ruta Sepetys: Lina is a fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. She's just like any other girl. Until one night in 1941, when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother are taken slowly north to a Siberian work camp, where they are forced to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the harshest of conditions. Stalin has deported them and is claiming their home as his own. Suffering abuse both physical and emotional, Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously -- and at a great personal risk -- documenting events by drawing. She imbeds clues in her art of their location and secretly passes them along, attempting to contact her father, hoping the drawings will eventually make their way to his prison camp. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years, covering 6,500 miles. Many lives were lost, but it was their incredible strength, love, and hope that allowed Lina and her brother to endure and ultimately survive.

3. Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough: Rome, 1605: After her mother's death, Artemisia Gentileschi had a stark choice: a life as a nun in a convent or a life grinding pigment for her father's paint. She chose paint. Artemisia became one of Rome's most talented painters-- and her father took all the credit. Five years later, in the aftermath of a rape, Artemisia faced another terrible choice: a life of silence or a life of truth, no matter the cost. Through the ensuing trial and torture, she is buoyed by her mother's stories of strong women of the Bible.

4. Confessions of an Alleged Good Girl by Joya Goffney: As a preacher's daughter, Monique is expected to be an example at church although she hates its restrictive rules. When she discovers she physically cannot have sex, and after her boyfriend breaks up with her for that reason, two unexpected teens from church become her main supports as she desperately tries to break the rules against all the odds.

5. Flygirl by Sherri L Smith: During World War II, a light-skinned African American girl "passes" for white in order to join the Women Airforce Service Pilots.

6. Furia by Yamile Saied Méndez: Rosario, Argentina. At home Camila Hassan lives within her mother's narrow expectations, her soccer-star brother's shadow, and under the abusive rule of her short-tempered father. On the field, she is La Furia, a powerhouse of skill and talent. When her team qualifies for the South American tournament, Camila dreams of getting an athletic scholarship to a North American university. But her parents wouldn't allow a girl to play fúbol-- and she needs their permission to go any farther. Can she make her way in a world with no place for the dreams and ambition of a girl like her?

7. How (Not) to Fall in Love by Jacqueline Firkins: Harper works in her mom's wedding shop, altering dresses for petulant and picky brides who are more focused on hemlines than love. After years of watching squabbles break out over wedding plans, Harper thinks romance is a marketing tool. Nothing more. Her best friend Theo is her opposite. One date and he's already dreaming of happily-ever-afters. He also plays the accordion, makes chain mail for Ren Festers, hangs out in a windmill-shaped tree house, cries over rom-coms, and takes his word-of-the-day calendar very seriously. When Theo's shocked to find himself nursing his umpteenth heartbreak, Harper offers to teach him how not to fall in love. Theo agrees to the lessons, as long as Harper proves she can date without falling in love. As the lessons progress and Theo takes them to heart, Harper has a harder time upholding her end of the bargain. She's also checking out her window to see if Theo's home from his latest date yet. She's even watching rom-coms. If she confesses her feelings, she'll undermine everything she's taught him. Or was he the one teaching her?

8. Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu: Vivian Carter is fed up with a high school administration that thinks the football team can do no wrong. Fed up with sexist dress codes, hallway harassment, and gross comments from guys during class. But most of all, Viv is fed up with always following the rules. Her mom was a tough-as-nails, punk rock Riot Grrrl in the '90s, and now Viv takes a page from her mother's past and creates a feminist zine that she distributes anonymously to her classmates. She's just blowing off steam, but what she has started is nothing short of a girl revolution.

9. Some Other Now by Sarah Everett: Jessi Rumfield spent her childhood in the house next door, challenging Rowan Cohen to tennis matches while his older brother, Luke, studied in the background and Mel watched over the three like the mother Jessi always wished she had. Now it's been almost a year since Jessi visited the Cohen house. Rowan is gone. Mel is in remission and Luke hates Jessi for the role she played in breaking his family apart. Jessi spends her days at a dead-end summer job avoiding her real mother, who suddenly wants to play a role in Jessi's life after being absent for so long. When Luke comes home from college, it's hard to ignore the past. When he asks Jessi to pretend to be his girlfriend for the final months of Mel's life, she finds that everything has changed-- but is willing to play pretend for one final summer.

10. The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee: 1890, Atlanta. Jo Kuan works as a lady's maid for the cruel daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Atlanta. But by night she moonlights as the pseudonymous author of a newspaper advice column for the genteel Southern lady, "Dear Miss Sweetie." When her column becomes wildly popular, she uses the power of the pen to address some of society's ills, but she's not prepared for the backlash that follows when her column challenges fixed ideas about race and gender. A mysterious letter sets Jo off on a search for her own past and the parents who abandoned her as a baby, but her efforts put her in the crosshairs of Atlanta's most notorious criminal. Jo must decide whether she is ready to step into the light.

11. The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys: At the Castellana Hilton in 1957 Madrid, eighteen-year-old Daniel Matheson connects with Ana Moreno through photography and fate as Daniel discovers the incredibly dark side of the city under Generalissimo Franco's rule.

12. We Can Be Heroes by Kyrie McCauley: Beck and Vivian never could stand each other, but they always tried their best for their mutual friend, Cassie. Then Cassie is killed at school by her ex-boyfriend Nicholas, the teen heir to the Bell Firearms fortune. After the town moves on from Cassie's murder too fast, Beck and Vivian finally find common ground: vengeance. They memorialize Cassie by secretly painting murals of her around town, a message to the world that Cassie won't be forgotten. When their murals catch the attention of a podcaster, they become the catalyst for a debate that Bell Firearms can no longer ignore. With law enforcement closing in on them, Beck and Vivian hurry to give Cassie the closure she needs-- by delivering justice to those responsible for her death.

This blog post was written by V.W., a Peer Leader for the Librarians of Tomorrow (LoT) internship.