In honor of Women’s History Month, and in an effort to help you pass the time while staying safe and healthy (and socially distant!) at home, FLOC’s staff has come up with a list of our favorite books, movies, TV shows, and songs that celebrate girl power. We hope you enjoy!
Trynita’s Pick: The Devil Wears Prada
The Devil Wears Prada reminds me of how as women we can do and be anything. In times of despair, adversity, great challenge or victory women have continuously been intricate in seeing things and people through. One of my mantras is “not every storm comes to destroy but some to clear a path.”
Atara’s Pick: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred Taylor
I read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry for the first time in the fifth grade. I loved Cassie and the Logan family and soon read the following books: Let the Circle Be Unbroken and The Road to Memphis. When I finished reading The Road to Memphis, I was upset that the fourth book hadn’t been released yet. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry was released for the first time in 1979 and The Road to Memphis was published in 1990: four years before I was born! Where was Ms. Mildred Taylor with the last book??? This year in February I just so happened to look up Mildred D. Taylor and found that she had released All the Days Past, All The Days to Come, the last installment to the Logan Family Series. I am so excited to be re-reading the series and to know that it is never too late to finish what you started. Thank you, Ms. Taylor, and to all women authors who have molded me with their carefully chosen words and multifaceted strong characters.
Brenna Cowardin: Isabel of the Whales, by Hester Velmans
This is the first book that made me cry. I remember very clearly sitting at my desk and reading during recess in third grade and just sobbing because the ending was so heart-wrenching. It’s a short novel for children about an 11-year-old girl who falls into the ocean on a whale-watching trip and turns into a whale. The premise is a bit odd, but it’s very sweet and empowering, especially for young girls.
Morgan’s Pick: Girl, Wash Your Face, by Rachel Hollis
This book is a must-read for any woman who believes that she is the only one who doesn’t have life figured out yet. It definitely helped me a lot during my transition from college to the real world where I faced a lot of rejection, uncertainty, and an overall disconnect between the life I was living and the life I had imagined for myself after I graduated. Girl, Wash Your Face shows you how to live with passion and hustle — and how to give yourself grace without giving up.
Shawn’s Pick: Milk and Honey and The Sun and Her Flowers, by Rupi Kaur
Definitely on the top of my poetry lists! I love how Rupi Kaur’s work is simple but purposful, bold but humble, and most of all, relatable.
Here are some more of FLOC’s staff favorites to empower you during #WomensHistoryMonth!
Movies/TV Shows:
Grace & Frankie
Ella Enchanted
Legally Blonde
Books:
The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir, by Thi Bui – a beautiful graphic novel written about the author’s family’s journey from Vietnam to the US as refugees during the Vietnam War. She writes the novel as she begins to raise her own child, and questions of motherhood, inherited trauma and post-memory are themes that run throughout the work.
The Nightingale, by Hannah Kristin – tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France–a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women.
Songs:
Roar by Katy Perry
Road Less Traveled by Lauren Alaina
Run the World (Girls) by Beyonce
Girl on Fire by Alicia Keys
