Women's History Month 2023

"This is a historical nonfiction book about Virginia Hall, an American spy in France who the Nazis dubbed "the most dangerous of allied spies." It tells the story of her youth and her work in Europe during the second world war."--

"The remarkable true story of the world's first giraffologist. At three years old, Anne Dagg saw her first giraffe and never stopped thinking about it. Her desire to study the world's tallest animal followed her from preschool to graduate school, from Canada to South Africa. And often, people laughed at her quest. The scientific study of giraffes was non-existent at the time. And by a woman? Unheard of. But by following her love of giraffes, Dr. Anne...

One woman's quest to win a historic tenth Queen of the Bands in Toronto's illustrious Caribbean Carnival, must overcome rivals and most of all, herself to forever solidify her legacy in her Caribbean community.

"A vibrant and empowering history that emphasizes the perspectives and stories of African American women to show how they are--and have always been--instrumental in shaping our country. In centering Black women's stories, two award-winning historians seek both to empower African American women and to show their allies that Black women's unique ability to make their own communities while combatting centuries of oppression is an essential component...

"Meet the Queen of Salsa, Celia Cruz-once just a girl from Havana, Cuba, who loved to sing. Her soulful voice, compelling charm, and unstoppable determination led to her meteoric rise to fame, opening the door for Latinx performers everywhere. Her booming career took her from the Sonora Matancera to the Fania All-Stars, with the rising popularity of salsa, a genre born of Afro-Cuban musical stylings. Six decades and more than seventy albums later,...

"Born to an aspirational blue-collar family during the Great Depression, Constance Baker Motley was expected to find herself a good career as a hair dresser. Instead, she became the first black woman to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court, the first of ten she would eventually argue. The only black woman member in the legal team at the NAACP's Inc. Fund at the time, she defended Martin Luther King in Birmingham, helped to argue in Brown vs....

Recruited by the U.S. Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges, more than ten thousand women served as codebreakers during World War II. While their brothers and boyfriends took up arms, these women moved to Washington and learned the meticulous work of code-breaking. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them.

"Sisters separated by war forge new identities as they are forced to choose between family, nation, and their own independence. Scions of a once-great southern Chinese family that produced the tutor of the last emperor, Jun and Hong were each other's best friends until, in their twenties, they were separated by chance at the end of the Chinese Civil War. For the next thirty years, while one became a model Communist, the other a model capitalist, they...

"While Confederate statues are brought down across the country, America is reckoning with its tumultuous past and the legacy of the darker chapters of our history. In The Devil's Half Acre, New York Times bestselling author Kristen Green draws on years of deep research to tell the extraordinary hidden story of young Mary Lumpkin, an enslaved woman who sought freedom and lit a path for liberation for thousands more. Enslaved and separated from her...

"The vivid biography of two pioneering sisters who, together, became America's first female doctors and transformed New York's medical establishment by creating a hospital by and for women. Elizabeth Blackwell believed from an early age that she was destined for greatness beyond the scope of "ordinary" womanhood. Though the world recoiled at the notion of a woman studying medicine, her intelligence and intensity won her the acceptance of the all-male...