Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom

Ag-Related Books for Children and Young Adults

Women and Girls in Agriculture

Cha, Dia, Dia's Story Cloth, Lee and Low, 1996. (K-5)

A Laos woman recounts her family's wartime displacement, during which she was forced to flee to a refugee camp in Thailand and remain away from her home for four years, in a story that is illustrated by a lavish Vietnamese story cloth.

Denenberg, Barry, So Far From Home: The Diary of Mary Driscol, An Irish Mill Girl, Lowell Massachusetts, 1847, Scholastic, 1996. (Grades 4-7)

Fourteen-year-old Mary Driscoll and her family have lived in terrible poverty in the Irish countryside every since the potato famine began several years ago. When Mary is offered a chance to join her aunt and older sister in America, she jumps at the chance to seek a better life for herself. But after a long, stormy, and miserable ocean voyage, Mary arrives in America to find that it is nothing like she expected. She takes a job in a textile mill in Lowell, Massachusetts, where she is scorned by most of the American workers and expected to work long hours under terrible, unsafe conditions. There are few bright spots in this account of the life faced by many girls in New England cities during the mid-nineteenth century, and most of what happened to the fictional character of Mary happened to various girls who lived back then and worked in factories and mills.

DePaola, Tomie, The Legend of the Poinsettia, Putnam, 1994. (Grades K-3)

dePaola's skillfully pared-down narrative and paintings that glow with strong colors present the story of a well-intentioned Mexican child, Lucida. Distressed because she has no other gift to offer Baby Jesus, she carries into the church an armful of weeds, each of which suddenly becomes "tipped with a flaming red star," marking the miraculous blooming of the first poinsettias. Available in English and Spanish.

Demi, One Grain of Rice: A Mathematical Folk Tale, Scholastic, 1996 (Grades K-2).

The story of Rani, a clever girl who outsmarts a very selfish raja and saves her village. When offered a reward for a good deed, she asks only for one grain of rice, doubled each day for 30 days. Remember your math? That's lots of rice: enough to feed a village for a good long time--and to teach a greedy raja a lesson.

Goble, Paul, The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses, Aladdin, 1993 (Grades K-2).

For most people, being swept away in a horse stampede during a raging thunderstorm would be a terrifying disaster. For the young Native American girl in Paul Gobl''s 1979 Caldecott-winning masterpiece, The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses, it is a blessing. Although she loves her people, this girl has a much deeper, almost sacred, connection to her equine friends. The storm gives her the opportunity to fulfill her dream -to live in a beautiful land among the wild horses she loves. With brilliant, stylized illustrations and simple text, Paul Goble tells the story of a young woman who follows her heart and the family that respects and accepts her uniqueness.

Hearne, Betsy, Seven Brave Women, Greenwillow, 1997 (Grades K-4).

Take a journey through time with seven women who left their indelible imprints on the past. Their history is a story and more. They were farmers and artists and missionaries and storytellers. They fought many battles but never in any wars. They were devout and determined and tireless and beloved. They were brave beyond compare.

Hospkinson, Deborah, Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, Knopf, 1993 (Grades K-3).

As a seamstress in the Big House, Clara dreams of a reunion with her Momma, who lives on another plantation - and even of running away to freedom. Then she overhears two slaves talking about the Underground Railroad. In a flash of inspiration, Clara sees how she can use the cloth in her scrap bag to make a map of the land - a freedom quilt - that no master will ever suspect.

Katz, William Loren, Black Women of the Old West, Atheneum, 1995 (Grades 4-7).

Using primary sources and featuring dozens of black-and-white archival photographs and reproductions, Katz recounts stories of African American women who made the journey west and illuminates the times in which they lived and their reasons for going. Some women of color escaped west from slavery. Others sued for freedom after being taken there by their owners. Still others came as mail-order brides. Many black women flourished on the frontier, where they found more opportunities for education and better paying jobs.

Miller, Brandon Marie, Buffalo Gals: Women of the Old West, Lerner, 1995 (Grades 4-7).

Miller's book acquaints children with a historically accurate picture of the daily life of 19th Century women of the western frontier. Without neglecting the story of the Native American women who lived on the frontier, Miller catches both the bone-wearying labor and the excitement that sometimes made living in the West worthwhile. She augments her text with excerpts from journals and memoirs as well as photographs from regional archives, which are especially effective because the images are not familiar ones.

O'Dell, Scott, Carlota, Houghton Mifflin, 1977. (Young Adult)

Carlota thinks her role in life is to take the place of her dead brother to please her father. At 16 she races her stallion, dives for gold in shark-infested waters and fights in the Mexican-American War. But her most difficult feat is to defy her father and become her own person.

Rutberg, Becky, Mary Lincoln's Dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckley's Remarkable Rise from Slave to White House Confidante, Walker, 1995 (Young Adult).

Born a slave in 1818, Mary Keckley endured 37 years of abuse, including forced sexual relations (and a resulting pregnancy) before buying freedom for herself and her son. Once free, she used her sewing skills to bec ome one of Washington D.C.'s most successful dressmakers. Then she closed her dress shop to care for the first lady after Lincoln's assassination.

Savage, Candace, Cowgirls, Tenspeed, 1996.

Savage provides a fine history of the cowgirl, exploring the lives of women in the American West and blending historical review with excerpts from journals and over 100 images from archives and private collections of cowgirls in action. Enjoy a pleasing blend of visual excitement and historical lore.

San Souci, Robert, Cut From the Same Cloth; American Women of Myth, Legend and Tall Tale, Philomel, 1993 (Grades 3-8).

The women come from the Native American, African American, Mexican American, and Canadian traditions. Although they differ in many ways from their male counterparts, there are still tricksters, sweet talkers, and brave and strong protagonists like those found in hero stories. There has been some retelling, some modifications of dialects, some reshaping of open endings, but the plots have not been tampered with. Each story is illustrated with an engraving of some sort, with black background and white lines that give the pictures an antique quality like a woodcut or copper engraving. Notes on the stories and an extensive list of further reading are appended.

Taylor, Mildred D., Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Puffin, 1997. (Grades 4-7)

Cassie's family faces a real challenge: to hold on to land in the South during the Depression. Her father works away from home and her mother works and runs the family farm. Lynne Thigpen dramatizes this excellent classic story of a black family's struggles to remain independent and proud against all obstacles.

Woodson, Jacqueline, and Hudson Talbott, Show Way, Putnam, 2005. (Grades K-5)

A Show Way is a quilt with secret meanings, and the image works as both history and metaphor in this picture book. Based on Woodson's own history, the story is of African American women across generations, from slavery and the civil rights movement to the present. Growing up on a plantation in South Carolina, Soonie learns from Big Mama about children "growing up and getting themselves free," and also how to sew quilts with signs that show the way to freedom.