2012 Amelia Bloomer List celebrates feminist perspective in books for young readers

DALLAS – The Amelia Bloomer Project, a product of the ALA Social Responsibilities Round Table’s (SRRT) Feminist Taskforce, announced the 2012 Amelia Bloomer List at ALA’s Midwinter Meeting in Dallas, held Jan. 20-23, 2012.

The bibliography consists of well written and illustrated books with significant feminist content, intended for young readers from birth to 18 years old. This year’s list includes 78 titles published between July 1, 2010 and Dec. 31, 2011.

Named for Amelia Bloomer, a pioneering 19th century newspaper editor, feminist thinker, public speaker and suffragist, the list features books about girls and women that spur the imagination while confronting traditional female stereotypes.

The bibliography is intended to aid children and teens in selecting high-quality books released over the past 18 months and may be used for a recommended reading list for youth and those who interact with them and as a collection development or reader’s advisory tool for interested librarians. The top 10 titles of the 2012 Amelia Bloomer List include:

“Addie on the Inside” (2011), written by James Howe and published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers;

“Basketball Belles: How Two Teams and One Scrappy Player Put Women’s Hoops on the Map” (2011), written by Sue Macy, illustrated by Matt Collins and published by Holiday House;

“Beauty Queens” (2011), written by Libba Bray and published by Scholastic;

“Deadly” (2011), written by Julie Chibbaro and published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers;

“The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe” (2011), written by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon and published by Harper Collins;

“Ruth Bader Ginsburg: U. S. Supreme Court Justice” (2010), written by Paul McCaffrey and published by Chelsea House;

“Tillie the Terrible Swede: How One Woman, a Sewing Needle and a Bicycle Changed History” (2011), written by Sue Stauffacher, illustrated by Sarah McMenemy and published by Alfred A. Knopf;

“Women Heroes of World War II: 26 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage, Resistance and Rescue” (2011), written by Kathryn J. Atwood and published by Chicago Review Press;

“Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way)” (2011), written by Sue Macy and published by National Geographic; and

“When She Woke” (2011), by Hillary Jordan published by Algonquin Books.

To view the complete annotated list, please visit the Amelia Bloomer Project blog, http://ameliabloomer.wordpress.com/

The Amelia Bloomer Project committee members are Maureen McCoy (co-chair), Beth Olshewsky (co-chair), Jennie Law, Lalitha Nataraj, Linda Parsons, Kelly Rottmund, Angela Semifero, April Witteveen and Joy Worland.

The ALA Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT) is a unit within the American Library Association. It works to make ALA more democratic and to establish progressive priorities not only for the Association, but also for the entire profession. Concern for human and economic rights was an important element in the founding of SRRT and remains an urgent concern today. SRRT believes that libraries and librarians must recognize and help solve social problems and inequities in order to carry out their mandate to work for the common good and bolster democracy. SRRT’s main Web site is hosted at http://libr.org/SRRT.