A new year has just begun, which is why this month’s recommendations feature new beginnings books for girls. Whether you’re looking for stories about girls who have gone through similar challenges to you or hoping to find advice on starting anew yourself, these books are meant to get 2021 off to a great start!
13 Things Strong Kids Do: Think Big, Feel Good, Act Brave
You don’t always have control over what will happen to you from one day to the next, but you do have some control over how you respond to it. This book outlines 13 skills that can help you weather whatever life throws your way, now and for all the years ahead. Author Amy Morin, after writing a similar book for adults, said many people came to her wishing they’d known how to adapt to change, say no, feel good about themselves, and more back when they were kids. What better time to start practicing these important skills than right now?
Roses and Radicals: The Epic Story of How American Women Won the Right to Vote
Many of us are still reeling from the election, looking forward to the end of the transition that will occur on inauguration day later this month. Although millions of women voted in the 2020 election, playing a crucial role in its final outcome, just a little over 100 years ago women in the U.S. couldn’t vote at all. Roses and Radicals follows the long journey from the first gathering of suffragists in 1848 to the passage of the 19th Amendment 72 years later. Although change doesn’t always happen fast, this book is a reminder that it’s worth continuing to fight for what you believe in.
Echo Mountain
Ellie and her family have to start over after losing everything — including their home — in a financial crash. As her family struggles with an accident that left her father in a coma, she journeys to the top of Echo Mountain seeking healing secrets from a mysterious woman known only as “the hag.”
The List of Things That Will Not Change
Bea is so excited that her new start will include a new sister, Sonia, when their dads get married. And although they’ve never met, already they have a lot in common: they are both 10, they both have divorced parents, and they both have gay dads. As the wedding day approaches, Bea discovers that making a new family involves surprises, questions, and joy.
Girl Almighty and Small and Mighty
If you want to record the journey that unfolds from your new start, consider picking up one of Nicole Larue’s guided journals. Girl Almighty: An Interactive Journal for Being a Mighty Activist of the World & Other Utterly Respectable Pursuits includes inspiration for learning about other activists, lists of ways you can be brave and what you are excited about each day, space for designing feminist T-shirt logos, and more. Small and Mighty: An Activist’s Guide for Finding Your Voice gives you space to explore what you believe, thoughtful “would you rather?” games, inspiring scavenger hunts, and more.
More New Beginnings Books for Girls
In Bad Best Friend by Rachel Vail, Niki’s best friend Ava abandoning her ends up being a new beginning as she finds out who she is without Ava.
Twelve-year-old Belle finds her new start more difficult than expected when her family loses their family farm in Iowa and moves to Colorado to accept the government’s 1910 offer of 320 acres of homesteading land in Hardscrabble by Sandra Dallas.
Five orphans want nothing more than to find loving families, until a corrupt sea captain tries to make them his minions and Milou decides to plan an escape for her and her friends in The Unadoptables by Hana Tooke.
In Raising Lumie by Joan Bauer, Olive is ready to raise a guide dog after her family’s move to a new town … but will she be able to say goodbye after her dog is trained?
New-in-town Kammie Summers falls into a well during a cruel club initiation, where her time alone forces her to explore her memories and the awful reasons her family had to move in the first place in The Girl in the Well is Me by Karen Rivers.