If I’m entirely honest, I bought these books for myself. Little People, BIG DREAMS is a series of books about inspirational women from history. They’re beautifully illustrated and written in simple but truthful language, and tell the stories of amazing, full lives, all of which left a lasting mark on the world.
I can remember when I was maybe six or seven, being obsessed with a series of non-fiction books on the various English monarchs. I think it was something to do with them being real people, living real lives, rather than the sentient animals or mischievous children who populated the majority of my reading material.
But even then, I was well-aware that most of my beloved monarchs were men. In fact, most of the big players in history tended to be of the male persuasion—if the history books are to be believed. In 2015, Slate surveyed 614 US popular history titles to reveal that 76% were written by men, mostly about men. The UK is (at least, it was in 2015) apparently much the same. Serious history, serious men, war, politics, Nazis, grrrrr, men. (Slate link here).
Thankfully, recent years have seen more interest in social and cultural history, and women are getting more of a look-in. But "uncle books", as the Slate article calls them, still seem to dominate, if the tables at Waterstones are anything to go by.
So since having a daughter, I’ve been working on diversity—be it gender, race, lifestyle, opinion, etc.—in our kids’ non-fiction book collection. When my daughter starts reading for herself, my hope is that she’ll be surrounded by books about all manner of different people and she’ll not think to herself ‘hmmm, why was it only men who got to do meaningful stuff?’.
Except…at three-and-a-half, she already loves the Little People, BIG DREAMS books, maybe for the same reasons I loved those monarchs, who knows? What I do know is that she engages with the stories far more than any of the children’s books she owns—to the point that she’s drawn extra pages for the books depicting some of the scenes which the writers chose to not dwell on. Poor Pierre Curie being run over by a horse and cart, for example (this would be darker if she hadn’t included an ambulance to save him, thus triggering a whole alternative timeline that may well change the world as we know it).
We love the Marie Curie, Emmeline Pankhurst, Maya Angelou, and Frida Kahlo books. We still need to buy Amelia Earhart, Coco Chanel, Agatha Christie, Rosa Parks, and Audrey Hepburn. It shouldn’t feel transgressive to buy a series of books featuring only women, but for me it still does—which is why I think we need books like this in the first place.
Check out the fonts and design - so pretty!
And while we're at it, these Little FEMINIST cards are beautiful, even if my preschooler does insist on rolling in them rather than playing Snap.
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