Famous Women

You might think by making this category we're engaging in a chauvinistic view of history. This isn't the case at all: but because humans have a propensity for confusing what God has made clear, there are many women who shine out from different times and places simply because they've been able to rise above their society and culture to accomplish something great.

We don't applaud rebellion for the sake of rebellion, but we do applaud grit, integrity, courage, and virtue, especially if these are present in the face of opposition, fear, ignorance, and immorality. From Isobel Kuhn to Rosa Parks, from Marie Curie to Sacagawea, noble women have stepped in when no man was available to alter the course of history.

The Bible sets a remarkable precedent here. For all the accusations made against Christians that we suppress women and keep them at home (in the kitchen, specifically), it is in the Bible that we first see women treated as equal to men in terms of imaging God and of innate worth. Ancient Israel's pagan neighbors, as well as New Testament Greek and Roman culture, consistently mistreated women as second-class citizens, whereas Jewish and Christian doctrine honored them as co-imagers of God.

One of the most obvious instances in the Bible of a woman doing what the men wouldn't is Deborah, the judge of Israel who was the only one qualified to lead the nation at that time. Of course, a woman judge was the exception rather than the rule, but the fact that God put her in place reveals the nature of Christian gender roles: predicated on nature and God's will rather than on ability, worth, or strength.

If the Christian faith was dedicated on an ideological level to suppressing women, women would never be allowed or able to do anything but serve men. But women weren't created by God to be slaves, they were created to complement and complete what is lacking in men. This is a message of liberty, not subjugation.

Not all the biographies in this section are of women who were actually virtuous or did good things. Many of them were quite bad, but the category is "Famous Women," not necessarily "Good Women." We do, however, encourage you to read at least as much about good women as about bad women, to use them as examples, and to take heart that God useseveryone to His own purposes and for His own glory, not just good people, and certainly not just men.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he is a husband and father, teaches adult Sunday school in his Presbyterian congregation, and likes weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.
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50 Women Every Christian Should Know
by Michelle DeRusha
from Baker Books
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A is for Abigail
by Lynne Cheney
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Amelia Earhart
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Anne Frank: Beyond the Diary
by Ruud van der Rol & Rian Verhoeven
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Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank, translated by B. M. Mooyaart-Doubleday with an introduction by Eleanor Roosevelt
Book Club Edition from Nelson Doubleday, Inc.
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Babe Didrikson Zaharias
by Jane Sutcliffe, illustrated by Jeni Reeves
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Bad Girls Throughout History
by Ann Shen
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Benazir Bhutto
by Englar, Mary
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Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank
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DK Biography: Marie Curie
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Weekly Reader Heroes of the Revolution
by Susan & John Lee
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Florence Nightingale
Sowers Series
by David Collins
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Biography for 5th-7th grade
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Frances Hodgson Burnett: Beyond the Secret Garden
by Angelica Shirley Carpenter, Jean Shirley
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Gertrude Chandler Warner and the Boxcar Children
by Mary Ellen Ellsworth
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Harriet Beecher Stowe
by Noel Bertram Gerson
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Harriet Beecher Stowe
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Harriet Tubman
Triangle Histories: The Civil War
by Lisa Halvorsen
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Harriet Tubman
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Helen Keller
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Helen Keller
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Helen Keller: The Story of My Life
by Helen Keller
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Homesick: My Own Story
by Jean Fritz
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Jeanne Guyon
by Jeanne Guyon
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Joan of Arc
by Diane Stanley
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Joan of Arc
by Margaret Hodges, illustrated by Robert Rayevsky
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Joan of Arc
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Joni Eareckson Tada: Her Story
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Juliette Low, Girl Scout Founder
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Katherine Parr
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Last Princess
by Fay Stanley; illustrated by Diane Stanley
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Life & Times of Elizabeth I
by Massimo Rossaro
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Lights In Lisuland
CF4Kids Trail Blazers
by Irene Howat
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Listening to Crickets
by Candice F. Ransom
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Lives of Extraordinary Women
by Kathleen Krull
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Lonely but Not Alone
by HRH Wilhelmina, Princess of the Netherlands
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Lost Star
by Patricia Lauber
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Madam C. J. Walker: Entrepeneur
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Madam President
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Maria
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Marie Curie
by Ibi Lepsckey
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Marie Curie's Search for Radium
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Mistress Bradstreet
by Charlotte Gordon
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My Name is Georgia
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Mysterious Journey
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Nefertiti: The Mystery Queen
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Outrageous Women of the American Frontier
Outrageous Women
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People at the Center of Women's Suffrage
by Deborah Kops
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Queen of the Falls
by Chris Van Allsburg
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Rachel Carson
by Melissa Stewart
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Sacajawea
by Joseph Bruchac
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Biography for 3rd-7th grade
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Scholastic Encyclopedia of Women in the United States
by Sheila Keenan
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Secret Soldier
by Ann McGovern
1st Edition Trade Paperback from Scholastic Inc.
Biography for 4th-6th grade
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Seneca Falls Women's Rights Convention
Events That Shaped America
by Dale Anderson, Sabrina Crewe
from Gareth Stevens Publishing
for 4th-6th grade
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Separate Battle
Young Readers' History of the Civil War
by Ina Chang
Reprint from Puffin Books
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Separate Battle
Young Readers' History of the Civil War
by Ina Chang
from Scholastic Reference
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Shark Lady
by Ann McGovern
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Small Steps
by Peg Kehret
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Story of Harriet Beecher Stowe
Cornerstones of Freedom
by Maureen Ash
from Children's Press
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Story of Harriet Tubman
Dell Yearling Biography
by Kate McMullan
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Susan B. Anthony Slept Here
by Lynn Sherr and Jurate Kazickas
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Susanna, Mother of the Wesleys
by Rebecca Lamar Harmon
1984 Printing from Abingdon Press
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Tinker's Daughter
Daughters of the Faith
by Wendy G. Lawton
from Moody Press
Biography for 3rd-6th grade
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Usborne Book of Famous Women
by Richard Dungworth and Philippa Wingate, illustrated by Nicholas Hewetson
from Usborne
for 3rd-6th grade
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$3.60 (1 in stock)
Valiant Companions
by Helen E. Waite
from Macrae-Smith Company
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Victoria and Her Daughters
by Nina Epton
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Voices of the Past
by Kaye England
from Kaye England Publications
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Voyager Out
by Katherine Frank
1st edition from Ballantine Books
for 11th-Adult
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$2.00 (1 in stock)
Warrior Queens
by Vicky Alvear Shecter, illustrated by Bill Mayer
from Boyds Mill Press
for 3rd-6th grade
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$6.00 (1 in stock)
Who Is Malala Yousafzai?
Who Was?...Series
by Dinah Brown, illustrated by Andrew Thomson
from Grosset & Dunlap
Biography for 3rd-4th grade
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$3.50 (1 in stock)
Who Is Sonia Sotomayor?
Who Was?...Series
by Megan Stine, illustrated by Dede Putra
from Grosset & Dunlap
Biography for 3rd-5th grade
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$4.00 (1 in stock)
Who Was Helen Keller?
Who Was?...Series
by Gare Thompson
from Grosset & Dunlap
Biography for 3rd-6th grade
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$3.50 (1 in stock)
Women Who Made a Difference
by Jeff Bloch, Malcolm Forbes
1st edition from Simon and Schuster
for 8th-Adult
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$3.00 (1 in stock)
Zlata's Diary
by Zlata Filipovic
from Scholastic Inc.
for 4th-8th grade
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$3.00 (1 in stock)