Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Tales of Extraordinary Women is inspiring the new generation
Every night, before she goes to bed, Tara, all of five and a half years of age, has a ritual with her parents, Neha and Saumitra. They change into pyjamas, set up their bed and then prop open their copy of Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Tales of Extraordinary Women. Tara will go on to read bedtime stories about 100 women whose stories have broadened horizons for other women all over the world.
Today, I’ve been invited over to also be a part of this cozy reading session. Together, they go through this book almost every night - scanning and re-scanning their most beloved stories. Tara isn’t the only girl growing up on this staple diet of a vivid imaginations of everything women can do - today, the book has not only sold more than a million copies worldwide, it has also been translated into 47 languages, and is now a part of a franchise that includes its second part, and an equally strong variant for young boys.
“The best thing about the book: all the stories are bite-sized,” says Saumitra, a linguist and an entrepreneur. Each story is only one page long, with an accompanying illustration of every character. Tara’s favourite story is Mary Kom. It is both relatable and exciting for her.
“We discuss one story each night, then watch a video about the icon in the story, and then Tara has a bunch of questions which we try to discuss with her,” says Neha, an entrepreneur and political scientist. The book has been recommended to the young parents by their friends’ and they themselves have recommended the book to several other friends.
Although published by Penguin, a well-known publication house, the story of the making of the book is just as interesting as the book itself. To quote co-authors Elena Favalli and Francesca Cavallo, this book is also special because of “the record-breaking amount of money we raised through crowdfunding (more than one million dollars! Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls is the most funded original book in the history of crowdfunding), the astonishing number of backers from more than 70 countries, and the privilege of working with dozens of unbelievably talented female artists from all over the world”.
The book has inspired parents, who want to instill a culture of progressive reading, to buy and read books that reimagine the world for their daughters. The written form of the book - reimagined creative fiction of real life
stories - is an interesting take on three of the most predominant literature styles that cater to young girls - biography, fairy tales and graphic novels. Stories which start with ‘Once Upon a Time’ open a possibility for a young reader’s mind to imagine stories of achievements already realized in real life.
In the end, the book also has a small template for writing their own stories and drawing their own portraits, a format which encourages a young mind to think of possibilities of everything they can do! When I started reading this book to Ruhi, my niece, who has just turned six, I realized that this book made difficult conversations inescapable.
“What does rebel mean?” she asked us. My father: “A trouble-maker?” My mother dismissed him and said, “No, it’s someone who stands up for herself and everything she believes in.” Undoubtedly, the word ‘rebel’ itself makes it okay for girls to not be “good girls” all the time - a pressure that has literally cut off most of the dreams up to my generation. As we thumbed through the book, Ruhi had questions. Not just one, but a hundred.
Woven through narratives of different kinds of achievement, not just competitive ones, this book will demand adults to think through difficult questions of gender, nations, race, discrimination, inequality, love, gendered expression, marriage and death with their younger reading partners. Good. Instead of avoiding these realities, helping young girls articulate them will help girls overcome them.
This book has become a thoughtful gift for women to pass on to their nieces and nephews. A 31-year-old Anandita Ghosh, a researcher and activist, said: “I’ve gifted these books to my nieces, one who was two years old and the other one was five. The beauty of the book is that it makes you
wonder - even as adults, we’re so set in our ideas and ways. But reading with children is different. No one can ask the sort of questions that young minds do - the book is best enjoyed in conversation with children, they compel you to think.”
The book is not just about singular journeys that women take up - it often has interesting non-female allies. Alfonsina Strada, an Italian cyclist, set a world record that was unbeaten for 26 years. Her parents thought that she would stop cycling after marriage. But her partner extended support by gifting her a cycle as their wedding gift. It’s not all praises though - stories of ‘iconic’ women in the book, are also stories of women who have taken unjust decisions as leaders - while Margaret Thatcher has been praised for being Britain’s first female Prime Minister, who made it against all odds, she was also responsible for neo-imperial policies that unleashed unprecedented inequality in the world.
Similarly, the book has been criticised for touting Aung San Suu Kyi as a Burmese icon. For Suu Kyi has also maintained a purposeful silence on the genocide of Rohingya Muslims. However, the book breaks a harsh reality in a gentle manner to its readers - inequalities exist, but their boundaries can and have been broken.
Saumitra is reading about the first African-American astronaut, Mae C Jemison to Tara. How does one explain ‘race’ to such a young mind? “Tara is at an age where she’s able to connect dots. When she reads about Hilary Clinton and how only boys were allowed to be presidents, and two nights after about Manal Al-Sharif, who is fighting against Saudi Arabia, which only allows men to drive, she understands that rules aren’t the same for everyone.”
But after reading the stories of women who have broken the rules, Tara also takes stands for herself amongst her cousins and classmates. As a reader, parents must also have difficult conversations around what achievements of rebellion could look like - a lot of times achievements also
operate at more private, individual, self, household level - whether it is about leaving an unequal marriage, or deciding to heal oneself, or standing by a loved one, or just pursuing excellence for oneself and for no other reason - achievements need to be reimagined. This book is a gentle prod in that direction, but adult readers also need to go that extra mile to make younger minds reimagine rebellion and bravery.
(The author is a development worker from Maharashtra: Charkha Features)
