BOOKS
- Motor Girls: How Women Took the Wheel and Drove Boldly Into the Twentieth Century
- Trudy’s Big Swim: How Gertrude Ederle Swam the English Channel and Took the World by Storm
- Miss Mary Reporting: The True Story of Sportswriter Mary Garber
- Sally Ride: Life on a Mission
- Roller Derby Rivals
- Basketball Belles: How Two Teams and One Scrappy Player Put Women's Hoops on the Map
- Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way)
- Bylines: A Photobiography of Nellie Bly
- Freeze Frame: A Photographic History of the Winter Olympics
- Swifter, Higher, Stronger: A Photographic History of the Summer Olympics
- Bull's-Eye: A Photobiography of Annie Oakley
- Girls Got Game: Sports Stories & Poems
- Play Like a Girl: A Celebration of Women In Sports
- Barbie: Shooting Hoops
- Winning Ways: A Photohistory of American Women in Sports
- A Whole New Ball Game: The Story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
Motor Girls
How Women Took the Wheel and Drove Boldly Into the Twentieth Century
Navigating the stops and starts of female drivers in the early years of the Automobile Age.
Foreword by Danica Patrick • Published by the National Geographic Society, 2017 • 96 pages • Ages 10 & up
A Junior Library Guild Selection
When I set out to write Motor Girls, I started with the question, “What’s next?” In my previous book for National Geographic, Wheels of Change, I had chronicled the liberating impact that the bicycle had on women’s lives in the 1890s. But as automobiles started crowding bikes off the roads in the 20th century, what happened to women? Did they grab the steering wheel and continue to drive toward equality, or did they take a back seat to men?
As I suspected, it was a bumpy transition. Many people saw the automobile as an inappropriate vehicle for women to drive. But that changed, thanks to technological innovations, the determination of some colorful “motor girls,” and changing circumstances—such as World War I—that gave women the chance to prove their skills in very challenging situations. You can read all about it in Motor Girls!
What the Critics Said
“Steer any reader with an interest in history towards this fantastic book.”
—Booklist, Starred Review
“This work is a terrifically entertaining and informative look at how the advent of automobiles shaped women’s history.”
—School Library Journal’s Curriculum Connections, March 14, 2017
Educator’s Guide
> Get a FREE comprehensive Educator’s Guide with Common Core alignments and classroom activities here.