The International Day Of The Girl (Annotated Edition)

- Blurb -

This introduction to the International Day of the Girl and its worldwide significance encourages children to recognise their own potential to make change, providing both a perfect lesson in social justice and a celebration of girl power. The United Nations designated October 11th as the International Day of the Girl, a day to increase awareness of problems that affect girls - and only girls - around the world and to encourage progress toward gender equality. Nine stories inspired by the real-life experiences of girls from all over the globe bring to light the importance of this day. Each story is set in a different country and sensitively describes an inequity faced by a character and how she addressed it. The challenges include gender-based violence, illiteracy, lack of access to technology, sanitation, nutritional disparity and child marriage. Each story features a positive description of the main character - strong, smart, creative, inventive, brave, talented, caring, funny, ambitious - and each concludes with a realistic yet hopeful outcome, presenting the girls as more than victims of their circumstances. Their powerful, and empowering, experiences will stir the activist in every child. Jessica Dee Humphreys' s well-researched and illuminating stories are both readable and age appropriate. Award-winning Simone Shin' s simple, warm illustrations bring the characters and their circumstances to life. Sidebars expand on the issues covered in each story. This book is a perfect choice for social justice discussions, as well as for social studies lessons on global communities, and for character education conversations on citizenship. It includes a foreword by the Honorable Rona Ambrose, who led Canada' s call for the day to be formally adopted by the United Nations. Also included are an annotated time line of the day' s creation and additional statistical information. A portion of the proceeds will go to Plan International Canada. AGES: 7 to 10 AUTHOR: Jessica Dee Humphreys has worked with several girls' rights organisations, including Save the Children and the United Nations Development Fund for Women. She is the co-author of a number of bestselling books. Simone Shin is an award-winning illustrator whose work includes The Red Bicycle.