10 Books by Mississippi Women You Need to Read

Mississippi is the land of storytellers. It's the birthplace of literary greats Richard Wright, Willie Morris, and William Faulkner, to name just a few. Women, though have been steadily adding to the state's writing wealth as well. In honor of Women's History Month, we've picked our favorite books by some of the best authoresses Mississippi has to offer.

The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love

Jill Conner Browne
Tupelo and Jackson, Mississippi

Laugh until you cry with this ode to being true to yourself and being the woman you want to be. This hilarious memoir covers everything from what to do when you find a possum under your bed in the middle of the night to tips on writing your own obituary.

Victory Over Japan

Ellen Gilchrist
Vicksburg, Jackson, and Ocean Springs, Mississippi

Ellen Gilchrist is a short story master and this collection is chock full of women in all their earthy, gritty, unabashed glory.

From the Mississippi Delta: A Memoir

Endesha Ida Mae Holland
Greenwood, Mississippi

Holland's memoir is a life-changing read. As a child, she suffered unimaginable horrors; as a young woman, a chance encounter with the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi gave her life a new direction and meaning.

Coming of Age in Mississippi

Anne Moody
Centerville, Jackson, Canton, and Gloster, Mississippi

Completely forthright and never sentimental, Anne Moody's autobiography is an eye opening experience. Moody, who was the same age as Emmett Till, was deeply affected by his kidnapping and murder. A fiery determination to fight for justice and equality was born and makes for a fascinating and inspirational read.

I'm Just a Person

Tig Notaro
Jackson and Pass Christian, Mississippi

Comedian Notaro had a very bad year. With humorous insight, this memoir describes how she managed to stare down the dark side of life and come out with soul intact on the other side. 

Everybody's Got Something 

Robin Roberts
Pass Christian, Hattiesburg, and Biloxi, Mississippi

In this powerful memoir, Roberts paints an inspirational portrait of her life. She has lived her motto to a T: that though everybody has problems, everybody also has something to give.

Bellocq's Ophelia

Natasha Trethewey
Gulfport, Mississippi

Inspired by photographer E.J. Bellocq's photo series of prostitutes in New Orleans' red light district, this poetry collection tells Ophelia's story. Moving from an objectified woman to a self-aware person with dignity, this lyrical book of poems is a gorgeous read.

Jubilee

Margaret Walker
Jackson, Mississippi

Jubilee follows its protagonist Vyry, born a slave, through the Civil War and its aftermath. Vyry's story, driven by hope, integrity, and justice, is a fictional account of the author's own family.

Salvage the Bones

Jesmyn Ward
DeLisle and Oxford, Mississippi

Set during the days before and after Hurricane Katrina, Esch, a young pregnant teen, struggles to keep her family safe and secure. With themes of love, family, and community, you'll be reaching for a box of tissues well before the moving conclusion.

One Writer's Beginnings

Eudora Welty
Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson and Columbus, Mississippi

One Writer's Beginnings is a quiet reflection of growing up in Mississippi, of a love of books, and the discovery that one can be small and still make your voice be heard.

Until next time, happy reading!

The Best of the Best: Reading Your Way Through Women's History Month

Continuing with Women's History Month here is a list of books by or about women for older readers.

Non-Fiction:

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy

Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon, Shana Knizhnik

All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation by Rebecca Traister

Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture and What We Can Do about It by Kate Harding

Sex Object by Jessica Valenti

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay

Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman by Lindy West

The Princess Saves Herself in this One by Amanda Lovelace

The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley

Florynce "Flo" Kennedy: The Life of a Black Feminist Radical by Sherie M. Randolph

Mrs. Sherlock Holmes: The True Story of New York City's Greatest Female Detective and the 1917 Missing Girl Case That Captivated a Nation by Brad Ricca

Living a Feminist Life by Sara Ahmed

You Can't Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain by Phoebe Robinson, Jessica Williams

Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock's Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout by Laura Jane Grace

Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

Fiction:

Difficult Women by Roxane Gay

All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg

Always Happy Hour: Stories by Mary Miller

13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad

The Atomic Weight of Love by Elizabeth J. Church

The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley

Lady Cop Makes Trouble by Amy Stewart

The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin

The Power by Naomi Alderman

A House for Happy Mothers by Amulya Malladi

The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood

Prayers for the Stolen by Jennifer Clement

Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi

Almost Famous Women: Stories by Megan Mayhew Bergman

Graphic Novels:

Bitch Planet, Vol. 1: Extraordinary Machine by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Valentine De Landro, Robert Wilson IV

ODY-C, Vol. 1: Off to Far Ithicaa by Matt Fraction, Christian Ward

The One Hundred Nights of Hero by Isabel Greenberg

DC Comics: Bombshells, Vol. 1: Enlisted by Marguerite Bennett, Marguerite Sauvage

Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel

French Milk by Lucy Knisley

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi, Mattias Ripa

The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua

The Story of My Tits by Jennifer Hayden

Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Octavia E. Butler, John Jennings, Damian Duffy

Happy reading.

Young Adult Books for Women's History Month

To celebrate Women’s History Month we have put together this list of young adult books by and/or about strong women. We hope that you can find a few new favorites from this list!

Non-Fiction:

• We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement by Andi Zeisler
• Here We Are: Feminism for the Real World by Kelly Jensen (Editor), Kody Keplinger, Courtney Summers Erika T. Wurth Brenna Clarke Gray, Mikki Kendall, Angie Manfredi, Lily Myers , Becca Sexton, Allison Peyton Steger, Anne Thériault, Shveta Thakrar, Kayla Whaley, Sarah McCarry, Malinda Lo, Ashley Hope Pérez, Nova Ren Suma, Daniel José Older, Wendy Davis, Matt Nathanson, Mia DePrince, Alida Nugent, Constance Zaber, Brandy Colbert, Siobhan Vivian, Rafe Posey, Jessica Luther, Michaela DePrince, Amandla Stenberg, Suzannah Weiss, Zariya Allen, Risa Rodil
• The V-Word: True Stories About First-Time Sex by Amber J. Keyser, Molly Bloom, Sidney Joaquin-Vetromile, Alex Meeks, Carrie Mesrobian, Sarah Mirk, Sara Ryan, Erica Lorraine Scheidt, Jamia Wilson, Kiersi Burkhart, Chelsey Clammer, Christa Desir, Kate Gray, Justina Ireland, Laurel Isaac, Karen Jensen, Kelly Jensen

• Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
• Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX: The Law That Changed the Future of Girls in America by Karen Blumenthal
• Women's Rights (Great Speeches in History) by Jennifer A. Hurley

• A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
• Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future by Jennifer Baumgardner, Amy Richards

• Feminism by Nancy Dziedzic              
• Feminism : Reinventing the F Word by Nadia Abushanab Higgins.
• Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers Who Changed History by Sam Maggs, Sophia Foster-Dimino

Fiction:

• Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
• Rani Patel in Full Effect by Sonia Patel
• Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz

• Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan
• Asking For It by Louise O'Neill
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

• The Valiant by Lesley Livingston
• Piecing Me Together by Renée Watson

• After the Fall by Kate Hart
• Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E.K. Johnston
• Gabi, a Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero

• Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina
• If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo
• Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera

Graphic Novels:

• Lumberjanes, Vol. 1: Beware the Kitten Holy by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Shannon Watters, Brooke A. Allen
• Princeless, Vol. 1: Save Yourself  by Jeremy Whitley, Mia Goodwin, Jung-Ha Kim, Dave Dwonch
• Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1: No Normal  by G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona

• Rat Queens, Vol. 1: Sass & Sorcery by Kurtis J. Wiebe, Roc Upchurch
• The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Volume 1: Squirrel Power by Ryan North, Erica Henderson
• Kim & Kim Vol. 1 by Magdalene Visaggio, Eva Cabrera, Imogen Binnie

• Princess Princess Ever After by Katie O'Neill
• Nimona by Noelle Stevenson
• Blue Is the Warmest Color by Julie Maroh

• The Adventures of Superhero Girl by Faith Erin Hicks
• Adventure Time: Marceline and the Scream Queens by Meredith Gran
• Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey by Ozge Samanci

 Happy reading.

Remembering Mary Church Terrell

Mary Eliza Church Terrell was born on this day, September 23, in 1863. When she was only six, her parents sent her from their home in Memphis, Tennessee, to Ohio, so that she might obtain a quality education, which was not available in her home state. She went on to achieve many things that were thought to be impossible for someone of her sex and color at that time:

• She secured not only a college degree, but also her master's degree (in 1885.)
• In 1896, with the help of women like Harriet Tubman and Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, Terrell co-founded the National Association of Colored Women by merging two women's groups for African-Americans. She served as president three times.
• Terrell was an avid suffragette, as well as a proponent of racial equality. She was a founding member of the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People in 1909.
• She passed away July 24, 1954, in Annapolis, Maryland.

One excellent resource for this remarkable woman comes from the Library of Congress. Click the link to find a plethora of resources about Mary Church Terrell. If you're looking for print sources, try her autobiography, A Colored Woman in a White World, or the juvenile biography, Fight On! Mary Church Terrell's Battle for Integration.

We leave you with these words from a speech she gave to the National American Women's Suffrage Association in 1898:

And so, lifting as we climb, onward and upward we go, struggling and striving, and hoping that the buds and blossoms of our desires will burst into glorious fruition ere long. With courage, born of success achieved in the past, with a keen sense of the responsibility which we shall continue to assume, we look forward to a future large with promise and hope. Seeking no favors because of our color, nor patronage because of our needs, we knock at the bar of justice, asking an equal chance.

Don't Iron While the Strike is Hot

Women’s Equality Day commemorates the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women in the United States the right to vote.  The Nineteenth Amendment was first introduced in 1878, but was not granted until August 26, 1920.  Today Women’s Equality Day serves as a symbol of the continuing fight for equal rights.

J. P. Laffont/Corbis Sygma

Betty Friedan, a founder of the National Organization for Women,
leads a march  in Manhattan in 1970 for the Women's Strike for Equality.

Women’s Equality Day also commemorates the Women’s Strike for Equality, sponsored by the National Organization for Women (NOW), which took place on this day in 1970.  The strike celebrated the 50^th anniversary of the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment. It spotlighted issues current to the time (and still as important today): equal pay in the workforce, political rights for women, equality in relationships, abortion, and free childcare.  The strike was organized by Betty Friedan, the author of Feminine Mystique.  At 5pm (so that working women could attend) on August 26^th tens of thousands of people gathered on Fifth Avenue in New York City.  The protested ended in Bryant Park, behind the New York Public Library, with speeches by Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, and Kate Millett. Protests were also held in Detroit, Pittsburgh, Washington D.C. Los Angeles, and Minneapolis. 

Check out our Bookclub Kits featuring Valuing the Vote Kit.   Also check out these books that celebrate women's rights! 

  

Happy Women's Equality Day! 

Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story by Peter Bagge
Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Women's Rights Movement by Sally G. McMillen
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
Women of Hope: African Americans Who Made a Difference by Joyce Hansen

http://www.nwhm.org/blog/celebrate-equality-day/

http://msmagazine.com/blog/2010/08/26/when-women-went-on-strike-remembering-equality-day-1970/

Women through the Pages

It's the final week of Women's History of Month and we've got a few more books up our sleeve we want you to read. These books are either written by or about amazing women and they are available for your group to read through our Book Club in a Box program. Check these out!

Mississippi Collection

Collected Stories  by Eudora Welty - With a preface written by the author especially for this edition, this is the complete collection of stories by Eudora Welty. Including the earlier collections A Curtain of Green, The Wide Net, The Golden Apples, and The Bride of the Innisfallen, as well as previously uncollected ones, these forty-one stories demonstrate Eudora Welty's talent for writing from diverse points-of-view with “vision that is sweet by nature, always humanizing, uncannily objective, but never angry” (Washington Post).

The Help by Kathryn Stockett - Aibileen is a black maid in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, who's always taken orders quietly, but lately she's unable to hold her bitterness back. Her friend Minny has never held her tongue but now must somehow keep secrets about her employer that leave her speechless. White socialite Skeeter just graduated college. She's full of ambition, but without a husband, she's considered a failure. Together, these seemingly different women join together to write a tell-all book about work as a black maid in the South, that could forever alter their destinies and the life of a small town...

Native Guard  by Natasha Trethewey - Through elegiac verse that honors her mother and tells of her own fraught childhood, Natasha Trethewey confronts the racial legacy of her native Deep South -- where one of the first black regiments, the Louisiana Native Guards, was called into service during the Civil War. Trethewey's resonant and beguiling collection is a haunting conversation between personal experience and national history.

The Last Resort: Taking the Mississippi Cure  by Norma Watkins – The memoir begins in childhood at Allison's Wells, a popular Mississippi spa for proper white people, run by her aunt. Young Norma wonders at a caste system that has colored people cooking every meal while forbidding their sitting with whites to eat. Once integration is court-mandated, her beloved father becomes a stalwart captain in defense of Jim Crow. A fine house, wonderful children, and a successful husband do not compensate for the shock of Mississippi's brutal response to change. When a civil rights lawyer offers love and escape, does a good southern lady dare leave her home state and closed society behind?

The Healing  by Jonathan Odell - In Antebellum Mississippi, Granada Satterfield has the mixed fortune to be born on the same day that her plantation mistress's daughter, Becky, dies of cholera. Believing that the newborn possesses some of her daughter's spirit, the Mistress Amanda adopts Granada and gives her a special place in the family despite her husband's protests. When The Master brings a woman named Polly Shine to help quell the debilitating plague that is sweeping through the slave quarters, Granada's life changes. Polly sees something in the young girl, a spark of "The Healing" 

Young Adult Collection            

Divergent by Veronica Roth - In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). All sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is--she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself. But she also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. 

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein - A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it's barely begun. When “Verity” is arrested by the Gestapo, she's sure she doesn’t stand a chance. As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she’s living a spy’s worst nightmare. Her Nazi interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal her mission or face a grisly execution. But will trading her secrets be enough to save her from the enemy?




Valuing the Vote Collection

With Courage and Cloth : Winning the Fight for a Woman's Right to Vote by Ann Bausum - Stunning archival photographs—some never before published—reams of research, and a deft and lively narrative tell this story as if it were hot off today's headlines. Any reader of this book won't easily forget the sacrifice and struggle of women who rose to champion Susan B. Anthony's 1876 clarion call: "We ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever."

This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer by Kay Mills - From her birth as the twentieth child of poor Mississippi sharecroppers, through her life as first a victim and then a champion of victim's rights and a leader of the civil rights movement, Kay Mills left no stone in Mrs. Hamer's life unturned.









For more information on any of these books or to reserve a kit for your library, please contact Ally Mellon at 601-432-4117 or amellon@mlc.lib.ms.us