Prep for Women's History Month with These 21 Picture Books

Educator friends! Looking for some picture books to highlight as Women's History Month approaches in March? I highly recommend all of these books shown above. Some are recent releases, some are a decade old, but all do a terrific job in highlighting the many things women are capable of. Honestly, it should be Women's History Year! 

I'm including titles with publisher descrips below and those at the beginning of the list include links to educational guides for your classroom to dive into! 

BOOKS WITH FREE EDUCATION GUIDES AVAILABLE
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Lighthouse Ladies: Shining a Spotlight on Hardy Heroines (Clarion, 2025) Ahoy! To man a lighthouse over a century ago in America required guts, courage, and bravery. It was a job tackled by hundreds every day, many of whom . . . were not men! This true tale chronicles the amazing feats of four fascinating women. Each real lighthouse lady featured in this book—whether she’s on a wind-walloped Hawaiian clifftop or an icy channel off the Virginia coast—shows that girl power was around long before it became a popular phrase. Education guide
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The Black Mambas: The World's First All-Woman Anti-Poaching Unit (Lerner, 2025): Head out on patrol with the Black Mambas, South Africa’s first women-led anti-poaching unit. This anti-poaching team is unlike any other: they carry no weapons. Instead, they keep animals safe with frequent patrols and a keen eye for footprints, snares, and other clues that poachers are nearby. These courageous women work in a nature reserve in South Africa’s Greater Kruger National Park. The reserve is home to the largest remaining populations of white rhinos, critically endangered black rhinos, and ground pangolins, one of the most trafficked animals in the world.​ Education guide

Up, Up, Ever Up! Junko Tabei: A Life In The Mountains (Clarion, 2024): Junko Tabei dreamed of a life climbing mountains. But men refused to climb with her. Sponsors told her to stay home. And gloves were not made to fit her hands. Junko, eager and unstoppable, wouldn’t let these obstacles get in her way. Instead, she planned an expedition to summit Mount Everest with an all-women team. Battling icy peaks, deep crevasses, and even an avalanche, Junko refused to give up. She climbed step by step . . . up, up, ever up! Education guide

​The Lobster Lady (Charlesbridge, May 2023): Still hauling lobsters at over 100 years old, Virginia Oliver is admired in the state of Maine and beyond. She has been lobstering on and off for over 93 years and is fondly known as the Lobster Lady among locals. Virginia is a native of Rockland, Maine. The Lobster Lady chronicles a day in Virginia's life while illuminating all that she remembers from growing up and starting a family on the mainland in Maine and on her family’s island, called the Neck. Readers get a sense of Virginia’s life and an idea of all that goes into lobster harvesting. Activity kit

Mystery Driver: The Story of Alice Johnson and the First Soap Box Derby (MIT Kids Press, 2025): Alice loves swooping through the clouds in Daddy’s biplane. She and he even flew through a howling tornado when Alice was only three! Grounded now by the Great Depression, Alice is yearning for more thrilling adventure when she sees a newspaper ad for a soap box derby where kids will race their own homemade, gravity-powered cars. Excitement is spreading like prairie fire! But wait—the race is only for boys? Alice knows she can be a race-car driver, too. So she and Daddy work hard in his machine shop to build the speediest car they can. Ball bearings let the wheels spin smoothly, rubber tires absorb bumps in the pavement, sleek surfaces slice through the air, and the crowning glory: an airplane’s nose cone! The day of the race, forty thousand people turn out to watch hundreds of boys compete—and one Mystery Driver. Activity kit

Before She Was Harriet (Holiday House, 2019): We know her today as Harriet Tubman, but in her lifetime she was called by many names. As General Tubman she was a Union spy. As Moses she led hundreds to freedom on the Underground Railroad. As Minty she was a slave whose spirit could not be broken. As Araminta she was a young girl whose father showed her the stars and the first steps on the path to freedom. This lush, lyrical biography in verse begins with a glimpse of Harriet Tubman as an old woman, and travels back in time through the many roles she played through her life: spy, liberator, suggragist and more. Education guide

The Water Lady: How Darlene Arviso Helps a Thirsty Navajo Nation (Anne Schwartz Books, 2021): Underneath the New Mexico sky, a Navajo boy named Cody finds that his family’s barrels of water are empty. He checks the chicken coop– nothing. He walks down the road to the horses’ watering hole. Dry. Meanwhile, a few miles away, Darlene Arviso drives a school bus and picks up students for school. After dropping them off, she heads to another job: she drives her big yellow tanker truck to the water tower, fills it with three thousand gallons of water, and returns to the reservation, bringing water to Cody’s family, and many, many others. Here is the incredible and inspiring true story of a Native American woman who continuously gives back to her community and celebrates her people. Education guide

Making Their Voices Heard: The Inspiring Friendship of Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe (Little Bee Books, 2020): Two women whose voices weren't being heard. Two women chasing after their dreams and each helping the other to achieve them. This is the inspiring, true story of two incredibly talented women who came together to help each other shine like the stars that they are. Education guide

Planting Stories: The Life of Librarian and Storyteller Pura Belpré (HarperCollins, 2019): When she came to America in 1921, Pura Belpré carried the cuentos folklóricos of her Puerto Rican homeland. Finding a new home at the New York Public Library as a bilingual assistant, she turned her popular retellings into libros and spread story seeds across the land. Today, these seeds have grown into a lush landscape as generations of children and storytellers continue to share her tales and celebrate Pura’s legacy. Education guide

Ada's Violin: The Story of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay (Simon & Schuster, 2016): Ada Ríos grew up in Cateura, a small town in Paraguay built on a landfill. She dreamed of playing the violin, but with little money for anything but the bare essentials, it was never an option...until a music teacher named Favio Chávez arrived. He wanted to give the children of Cateura something special, so he made them instruments out of materials found in the trash. It was a crazy idea, but one that would leave Ada—and her town—forever changed. Now, the Recycled Orchestra plays venues around the world, spreading their message of hope and innovation. Education guide

The Tower of Life: How Yaffa Eliach Rebuilt Her Town in Stories and Photographs (Scholastic, 2022):  This is the stunning true story of how Yaffa made it her life’s mission to recover thousands of her town’s photographs from around the world. Using these photos, she built her amazing TOWER OF FACES, a permanent exhibit in the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, to restore the soaring spirit of Eishyshok. Education guide

One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia (Lerner, 2015): Discover the inspiring true story of Isatou Ceesay, an African woman who started a recycling movement to combat the pollution caused by plastic bags in her community.​ Education guide

Saving American Beach: The Biography of African American Environmentalist MaVynee Betsch (Putnam, 2021): This heartfelt picture book biography illustrated by the Caldecott Honoree Ekua Holmes, tells the story of MaVynee Betsch, an African American opera singer turned environmentalist and the legacy she preserved. Education guide

Firefly Song: Lynn Frierson Faust and the Great Smoky Mountain Discovery (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2025): The Leaf Detective meets fireflies in this inspirational nonfiction picture book from Sibert Honoree Colleen Paeff about how one woman proved to scientists that the fireflies she had watched as a young girl put on dazzling and impossibly synchronous nighttime performances. Education resources

Jellyfish Scientist: Maude Delap and Her Mesmerizing Medusas (Charlesbridge, 2025) Meet scientist Maude Delap in this riveting STEM biography that details her biggest experiment—her observations of and research about jellyfish. Maude scoops a jellyfish out of the water and embarks on more than a year of observation of the animal, accomplishing something countless other scientists were unable to do: trace the life cycle of a jellyfish and understand the creature’s metamorphosis from larva to adult. Education guide


MORE BOOKS TO ADD TO YOUR LIBRARY

It Began with a Page: How Gyo Fujikawa Drew the Way (HarperCollins, 2019): From beloved team Kyo Maclear and Julie Morstad (creators of Julia, Child and Bloom: A Story of Fashion Designer Elsa Schiaparelli) comes an elegant picture book biography that portrays the most moving moments in the life of Gyo Fujikawa, a groundbreaking Japanese American hero in the fight for racial diversity in picture books.

Mariam’s Dream: The Story of Mariam Al-Shaar and Her Food Truck of Hope (Chronicle, 2025): Mariam's Dream follows real-life freedom dreamer Mariam Al-Shaar, known around the world for building Soufra, a women-run kitchen in the Bourj Al-Barajneh refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon. This is a story about how one woman can make a huge difference.

The Spider Lady: Nan Songer and Her Arachnid World War II Army ​(Calkins Creek, 2025): Venomous spiders, delicate silk, and science experiments filled Nan Songer’s days and nights—her home in California overflowed with many-legged critters. With inspiration from a friend, Nan began to study how spider silk could be harvested. The finely woven material spiders used to create webs was much stronger than it looked, and Nan was eager to unlock its potential and hopefully help her country at the same time. 

Introducing Sandwina: The Strongest Woman in the World! (Calkins Creek, 2024): No one believed a woman could be stronger than a man, until Katie Brumbach–also known as Sandwina—displayed her show-stopping feats as a circus strongwoman.

Milloo's Mind: The Story of Maryam Faruqi, Trailblazer for Women's Education (HarperCollins, 2023) From the author of Lailah’s Lunchbox and Unsettled comes a powerful picture book biography about Maryam Faruqi, the founder of the Happy Home Schools, which provided education to thousands of girls across Pakistan at a time when girls weren't encouraged to go to school.

How the Cookie Crumbled: The True (and Not-So-True) Stories of the Invention of the Chocolate Chip Cookie (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2017) Everyone loves chocolate chip cookies! But not everyone knows where they came from. Meet Ruth Wakefield, the talented chef and entrepreneur who started a restaurant, wrote a cookbook, and invented this delicious dessert. But just how did she do it, you ask? That’s where things get messy!