Noisemakers: 25 Women Who Raised Their Voices & Changed The World

Noisemakers, for starters, is an absolutely beautiful volume, both aesthetically as well as in its intent. Kazoo Magazine and Editor in Chief Erin Bried have gathered a tremendous amount of talent with this book in the name of reminding young girls that their voices are just as valuable as anybody’s and that they are capable of doing anything. Twenty-five tales are compiled here detailing women in history who have accomplished astonishing feats. The book is divided into six sections—Grow, Tinker, Play, Create, Rally, and Explore. Each of these sections gestures towards specific characteristics and interests parents can see in their children, helping to guide the reading in a way that allows the journey through this text to be specific to each reader. As if that wasn’t enough, each individual story has an intro portion that includes a list of things your child and the subject of the story may have in common (“I’ve visited aquariums”, “I am brave”, etc.).

I read this book with my five year old daughter over a few nights of bedtimes. We began at the beginning, with “Eugenie Clark: The Shark Whisperer” by Maris Wicks. My daughter has a particular fascination with ocean life and often claims to want to be a “science girl” when she grows up, so naturally she lit up when she saw the first story was a shark tale. As we moved through the list of things she might have in common with Eugenie Clark she promptly entered into a very revealing series of introspections. “The ocean is my happy place” it suggests for Clark but for my daughter, the truth couldn’t be further. “I like things in the ocean but not me!” “I believe we should be kind to all creatures.” “Especially spiders” she quickly blurted, one of her other obsessions. “I am brave.” “Sometimes!” “I am curious.” “Oh you know it!” Before the start of the first story, these things happened. Here she was, considering her own personal strengths and weaknesses while at the same time becoming emotionally invested in the story. Self-evaluation isn’t uncommon in children’s literature but rarely is it so well guided and presented, a definite strength of the book.

We wandered through the Grow portion of the book which had her rapt attention from the start but as we wandered into Tinker, she grew restless. Her personal engagement or lack thereof in certain stories was telling. These were simply things she was not interested in right now where I had imagined she might be most interested. So on we moved to Play where we read “Maria Tallchief: The Prima Ballerina” by Weshoyot Alvitre. She has recently taken up ballet, a casual hobby thus far and a nice way to occupy a Saturday morning. In the list of commonalities, there was an interesting combination. “I want to see the whole world.” “And I want the world to see me.” Asking her if she felt the same way puzzled her. It was clear that she wasn’t sure which I found extremely interesting. At her age, she’s still trying to wrap her mind around the world outside of what she knows and that was clear as she tried to understand. We spent more time talking about all the places she hasn’t seen than we did in the story itself. Those sorts of moments are the types of gifts Noisemakers gives.

For several of the stories, she would marvel at the sorts of things being done but never once did she seem to marvel that they were done by women. We deal with the same gender barriers that all parents do—“that’s a boy toy” or kids at the playground staunchly standing by “no girls allowed” paradigms—but maybe we’re seeing growth as a society, slowly. Books like Noisemakers will certainly go far in helping that growth continue in this new generation and it comes with my highest recommendation.

Here’s a special preview of “Hallie Daggett: The Forest Protector” by Rosemary Valero-O’Connell.