She Leads: The Elephant Matriarch by June Smalls
Summary: She is the Queen. The matriarch.
She leads her daughters and their daughters.
Text and illustrations follow the journey of an elephant matriarch as she leads her family through the wilds of Africa. With facts about African elephants on every spread and a message that will encourage girls to be the trailblazers of their generation.

A quietly powerful book about real girl power in the animal kingdom. She Leads manages to be both straightforward and moving, fact-filled and lyrical, always firmly grounded in the power, nurturing strength, and beauty of the elephant matriarch and her legacy to those who will follow. Yumi Shimokawara’s naturalistic illustrations bring the queen and her society to life, while June Small’s main text offers the elegance of poetry, filled out by more information in the sidebars on each page. Ideal for storytime, the classroom, or bedtime reading.

SHE LEADS: THE ELEPHANT MATRIARCH is out now.

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The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf
Summary: The bestselling classic that redefined our view of the relationship between beauty and female identity. In today’s world, women have more power, legal recognition, and professional success than ever before. Alongside the evident progress of the women’s movement, however, writer and journalist Naomi Wolf is troubled by a different kind of social control, which, she argues, may prove just as restrictive as the traditional image of homemaker and wife. It’s the beauty myth, an obsession with physical perfection that traps the modern woman in an endless spiral of hope, self-consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to fulfill society’s impossible definition of “the flawless beauty.”

My heart, mind, and soul are full of this book right now. The beauty and power with which Naomi Wolf identifies and analyzes so many truths of life as a woman has gone right to my core. I’ve been reading this book as part of my immersion into my current YA fantasy novel project, which is a fairy tale retelling that is an intersection of Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and Snow White. And Wolf’s work has given me so much to ponder, especially in its insightful analysis of the ways in which women participate in our own oppression when we believe that “beauty” is an objective standard, and in the ways the beauty myth drives women apart, individually and generationally. An absolute must read.

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