I requested and received an e-ARC of this book from NetGalley and Kids Can Press in exchange for my honest review.

This book tells the stories of nine different girls around the world that have suffered injustices because of their gender. This book also explains how October 11 became the International Day of the Girl. Each page contains the story of one of the nine girls and a box further explaining the situation affecting their part of the world. The stories were told well and with age appropriate language.

**I received 'The International Day of the Girl' through NetGalley and Kids Can Press, in exchange for an honest review**

The International Day of the Girl is a thoughtful compilation of inspirational stories of girls situated around the world. There are amazing tales of girls learning in underground schools, as well as other young women achieving the skills of carpentry and astronomy thanks to progressive-thinking families. These stories were equal parts emotional and heartwarming, each girl's personal portrait described in rich detail.

Towards the back, this book offers a thorough timeline of events leading up to the 2011 declaration of, International Day of the Girl (October 11). I loved this brief yet concise history lesson as to how this important day came to be. This education book is suitable for children of all elementary grade levels,, since it offers age-appropriate account of the importance of equal rights. This is valuable reading material for educators everywhere!

Title: International Day of the Girl, The
Celebrating Girls Around the World
by Jessica Dee Humphreys; Rona Ambrose
Kids Can Press
Children's Nonfiction
Pub Date: 01 Sep 2020
Review: Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3339649986?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

This book is to help children understand that it is not ok to treat a girl differently from a boy just because she is a girl. We get stories from girls that live in places from all over the world. Each story is different from the next and teaches a different lesson.

Though it may be difficult to believe that a book of this subject may need to exist in 2020, there are some real hard hitting facts in this book. We may think the world has moved forward as one but the truth is that we have not. This book shows that for many places it is still the norm that people place girls second.

Personally I have been aware of much that has been told in these stories but I think it is done in a balanced way for children. It doesn't lie to them but it is not overly graphic either. Definitely something I would read to the children in my family. I was surprised to see that there was no story about male inheritance but other wise I felt that most problems facing girls were covered.

This is the story of how October 11th became the International Day of the Girl. It focuses on nine girls from different backgrounds and different countries like Brazil, Kenya, India, Nigeria, Syria or Afghanistan, each hoping for something many girls don't have access to. Everyone knows there's an International Women's Day, but I personally didn't know there is a day to celebrate girls. Such a day is important to teach all children the importance of gender equality and girls' rights.

It reminded me of Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls, but this book focuses not on famous girls, but on ordinary girls longing for things usually reserved for boys only. Through nine different girls we learn of social issues girls worldwide struggle with such as illiteracy, access to education, child marriage, sanitation, or right to play, which something I didn't know was written in the Rights of the Child. Each girl in the book is given the name and a positive trait that characterises her, like bravery, creativity, talent, humour, ambition. Then a short and concise presentation of what the issue she faces is. I love that structure and the positive light shone on each girl.

At the end of the book there is a timeline of how the International Day of the Girl came to be, and further information on all the struggles and social issues mentioned in the book.

This is not a book for girls, but for children, boys and girls! As a quote from the book says, equality benefits everyone in the end.

I read this inspirational book with my 10-year-old daughter.
It's another beautifully presented global perspective title from Kids Can Press - the author's previous work includes Child Soldier: When Boys and Girls Are Used in War, from the same publisher. I would place its intended audience at middle-grades (ages 8-13), as it contains a reasonable amount of text and some challenging issues. It is also beautifully illustrated in a colour-block / collage style by Simone Shin.
As the title reveals, the book investigates the importance of celebrating a particular day - 11 October - each year, dedicated to promoting gender equality and championing the rights and achievements of girls throughout the world. Rather than consider major issues such as violence against women, access to educational opportunities, access to sanitation and child mariage as nebulous concepts, the book is broken into nine stories, each detailing an individual (fictional) girl's experience. The girls live in all corners of the world (excepting Australia/Oceania), and are confronting issues including lack of suitable school buildings, malnutrition due to gender inequality within the family, the mental health impacts of life in a refugee camp and feeling marginalised by societal stereotypes as to interests and eventual career choice.
Without exception, the girls take personal responsibility for their concerns, and set about finding solutions. In many cases, this requires the girl to build self-belief before standing up to authority figures to ask for change. While the results the girls achieved were inspiring, I felt that a few of the examples were perhaps unrealistic - eg. the Nigerian girl, Keeya, presents her research on why forced child marriage is harmful to girls to the religious leaders, who debate the issue for a few weeks, then outlaw child marriage. It's overly simplistic and tends to minimise the prolonged and determined effort that is acually required to achieve significant cultural changes. Nevertheless, and despite the fact that many of these scenarios will seem unfamiliar to privileged western readers, the over-riding message is that girls must believe in themselves and their right to have the same opportunities and access that men and boys enjoy. The book also highlights the importance of standing up and saying what you believe in to those who wield power, and of passing on the skills and knowledge we receive to other girls and women for their benefit. The book uses a garden metaphor at the beginning and end to illustrate this. While the majority of the stories focus on girls growing up in underprivileged circumstances, the garden segments represent a call to action to all girls, particularly those with privilege, to play their part in the ongoing struggle for gender equality. A timeline at the end of the book traces the development of the International Day of the Girl from The inception of the UN in 1945 to the present day and a Further Information section provides additional references for the issues referred to in the stories.
The material contained in this book is appropriate for girls aged between 8 and 13, and while it touches on confronting topics such as child marriage and access to sanitation, there are no explicit references to menstruation, rape, FGM or child-exploitation. All the stories depict "happy endings", which might not be completely realistic, but which will leave readers in an up-beat frame of mind.
Overall, both my daughter and I enjoyed the book. She enjoyed the parallels between her own (privileged) life and those depicted in the stories of the nine girls. I found the biographical information about the authors, the Further Information section and the timeline of the development of the International Day of the Girl particularly interesting.
I would recommend this book to all girls and their parents who are interested in gender equality and what it means in an international context. I will also be recommending that my daughter's school library acquire a copy of the book.
Thank you to the authors, Jessica Dee Humphreys and and the Honourable Rona Ambrose, the Illustrator Simone Shin, publisher Kids Can Press, Canada and Netgalley for the opportunity to review an ARC of this title.
#netgalley
#InternationalDayoftheGirl #CelebratingGirlsAroundtheWorld @jdeehumphreys @KidsCanPress

I enjoyed this short book about how girls around the world are treated differently and less favourably than boys. Even in a wealthy nation, a girl wonders why all the spacecraft toys and books are in the boys' part of the store. In a poor nation the problem may be as basic as no toilets in school, or harassment in a refugee camp. Specific ongoing issues include the female half of the family eating after the men have finished and not getting enough food, or girls being forced to marry early.

On each issue we meet an actual girl (This is Aster. She is ambitious.) and see how she has met such challenges and dealt with them. The colourful illustrations help kids imagine the life of their friends they haven't met yet.

At the end we learn about the UN Day of the Girl Child.
The book is kid friendly so don't worry about giving this to kids of any age to read. Older girls can read between the lines. Older boys, well we hope they learn that everyone deserves the same chances, but they don't actually get told not to be bullies or that life will be better for them if they respect girls. We do see they join a science club started by a girl. Age from six up to twelve, with an adult to help young kids understand everything. Be ready for some questions.

I downloaded an e-ARC from Net Galley. This is an unbiased review.

The International Day of the Girl celebrates girls and their their potential to change the world in a positive way. This book does a great job explaining social injustices and inequalities around the world such as child marriage, lack of adequate education and technological resources, and gender based violence. The information is presented through nine brief stories which makes learning about these global issues assessible to young children. Lovely illustrations with positive and empowering messages.

*Thank you to NetGalley and Kids Can Press publishers for providing a free ARC

Oh my gosh. I love this book! I want all my students to read it. I love the format with the illustration on one side and the text on the other. I can't wait to introduce this book to my classes! It will be on the first order for the year.

This book is simply wonderful, and if I had a daughter, I would buy this book for her. It's beautifully illustrated and covers heavy subjects such as child marriage, sanitation, and nutrition. Despite it being 2020, we are still fighting for equality for women and girls, and this book does a fantastic job at teaching young children about these issues in an age appropriate way.

This is a book that I would LOVE to read to my daughter in the future. But with some heavy topics covered, I’ll leave it a bit yet.

These hard topics are tackled from a proactive perspective, celebrating what one girl can do for the many.

The illustrations are beautiful and are helpful in off-setting the darkness that can hover over the inequality highlighted in each story.

I really enjoyed seeing what character trait was exemplified by the girl in each story.

This book is a positive and encouraging tool for navigating the difficulty facing the girls in our world.

I loved this book. I truly think that this is an important book for children to read, especially girls. I enjoyed learning about the different stories of these girls, and how they overcome their challenges. Additionally, this book is beautifully illustrated. Everyone should read this book.

This was an interesting book, revealing the terrible injustices perpetrated against women, but also keeping the tone of the book hopeful by describing positive stories about each of the different girls overcoming an obstacle in their lives. The book is obviously very well researched as is demonstrated from the end notes where each fact is supported by a different study or article. It was an interesting book. The only concern I have with the book is that in general it is a lot of information fit into a small package, and it might overwhelm some of my elementary readers. It's good, but it might wear out some readers before they get to the end.

Firstly, this book is BEAUTIFULLY illustrated.
Beyond that, it does what it sets out to do well in an accessible way for children and I learned some things along the way about a day I'm sure many don't realise exists or at least when it is.
We see a diverse range of girls and their stories and I can see this being a valuable resource within a classroom.
I only wish that there was more of it!

This book is basically about how UN designates a day just to celebrate girl child.
In here there are many stories of girls from different parts of world.Inspiring stories of young girls fighting against society's discrimination towards girls .
A must read for all the girls out there.A nust have for school libraries.

I really like how every page has a story about a girl, and with a picture connected to it. I also liked that every page has a text box with accurate information about the situation in a country, so that it isn't just stories but reflections of a country. Would be really nice to use in a 5th-7th grade classroom!

This beautifully illustrated book does a wonderful job of telling the stories of girls around the world and the human rights issues they face. The 9 girls we meet are strong, smart, creative, inventive, brave, talented, caring, funny, and ambitious in the face of their varied circumstances. The authors do a beautiful job of taking what could be frighteningly told via scare tactics or victim blaming (as was the experience for many women, I'm sure, myself included) and turning it into an incredibly empowering story. The authors superbly exemplify how to have these conversations.

I recommend this book to anyone and everyone who wants to engage themselves with the next generation of strong women.