books

CULT BUY: The story book that has girls and tweens across Australia captivated.

 

If you’re looking for something to help your daughter (or son) dream big tonight, there’s one book up for the task.

Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls is a children’s book packed with 100 extraordinary tales about the lives of 100 extraordinary women from the past and the present, illustrated by 60 female artists from all over the world.

Rather than trotting out the same old (and frankly, boring AF) ‘princess gets saved by a handsome prince’ narrative, these bedtime stories encourage girls to sweep themselves off their feet and into space, the CEO’s chair of a global business, their own business, even the White House or Kirribilli House.

Featuring real-life stories from some of our favourite kickarse women such as Hilary Clinton, Malala, Serena Williams and Michelle Obama, these are people who represent women from all walks of life – leaders, engineers, fashion designers, athletes, astronauts, activists, philosophers,  doctors, and dreamers.

Uncovering the art of asking a lot of questions, Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls is about the moments that make a life truly extraordinary – the trying, the failing, and most importantly, the trying again.

The authors, Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo learned this throughout their own entrepreneurial endeavours, having funded the book with a $1m Kickstarter campaign.

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The pair decided to turn traditional fairy tales on their heads after noticing a trend of gender stereotyping across children’s books and media.

“Because we are girls, our entrepreneurial journey made us understand how important it is for girls to grow up surrounded by female role models,” they wrote on their website.

“It helps them to be more confident and set bigger goals. We realised that 95 per cent of the books and TV shows we grew up with lacked girls in prominent positions. We did some research and discovered that this didn’t change much over the past 20 years, so we decided to do something about it.”

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Despite its name, the authors insist their book shouldn’t just be restricted to daughters.

“By any means, read these stories to your sons! It is crucial that they learn to identify and empathise also with female heroes! The stories in the book are a great source of inspiration for anyone, male or female, child or adult,” they said.

You can grab your copy of Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls here.

You can also listen to why Holly Wainwright loves this book so darn much on Mamamia Out Loud if you need some more convincing (but really, why would you)…

For more stories about kickarse women, try these on for size.