Hardy Gift Guide: Books & Magazines

Books by Andrea Beaty
Recommended for 5-7yr olds (K-2)

• Sofia Valdez, Future Prez
• Ada Twist, Scientist
• Rosie Revere, Engineer

Ladybug Magazine
recommended for 3-6yr olds
Offers a charming collection of the best stories, poems, songs, action games, and adventures for young children. Written by some of the world’s best children’s authors and illustrated by award-winning artists, LADYBUG Magazine sparks a love of reading that will last a lifetime. 100% ad free

Kazoo Magazine
recommended for ages 5-7
Kazoo is a new kind of quarterly print magazine for girls, ages 5 to 12—one that celebrates them for being strong, smart, fierce and, above all, true to themselves.

OurShelves
Send one package or subscribe for quarterly shipments.
This Maine company curates the best of children’s books featuring diverse characters AND advocate for the many diverse books still needed.

Sulwe by Lupita Nyong’o
Recommended for 4-8yr olds (PreK-3)
From Academy Award–winning actress Lupita Nyong’o comes a powerful, moving picture book about colorism, self-esteem, and learning that true beauty comes from within.

The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson
Recommended for 5-8yr olds (K-3)
There will be times when you walk into a room
and no one there is quite like you.

Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls
Volume 1, Volume 2, Box Set
Empowering journey through 200 bedtime stories, featuring the adventures of extraordinary women from Nefertiti to Beyoncé

Stories for Boys who Dare to be Different
This timely book joins and expands the gender-role conversation and gives middle-grade boys a welcome alternative message: that masculinity can mean many things. It celebrates introverts and innovators, sensitivity and resilience, individuality and expression.

Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera
YA novel, older teens
Juliet Milagros Palante is a self-proclaimed closeted Puerto Rican baby dyke from the Bronx. Only, she’s not so closeted anymore. Not after coming out to her family the night before flying to Portland, Oregon, to intern with her favorite feminist writer–what’s sure to be a life-changing experience. And when Juliet’s coming out crashes and burns, she’s not sure her mom will ever speak to her again.

Watch Us Rise by Renée Watson & Ellen Hagan
YA novel, older teens
Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Award-winning author Renée Watson teams up with poet Ellen Hagan in this YA feminist anthem about raising your voice.

Tell Me How You Really Feel by Aminah Mae Safi
YA novel, older teen
An ode to romantic comedies, following two girls on opposite sides of the social scale as they work together to make a movie and try very hard not to fall in love.

This Time Will be Different by Misa Sugiura
YA novel, teen
A richly crafted contemporary YA novel about family, community, and the importance of writing your own history.

This is Not a Love Scene by S.C. Megale
YA novel, older teen
For anyone who can relate to feeling different while navigating the terrifying and thrilling waters of first love. Lights, camera―all Maeve needs is action. But at eighteen, a rare form of muscular dystrophy usually stands in the way of romance.

If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson
YA novel, teen
Jeremiah and Ellie know they fit together–even though she’s Jewish and he’s black. Their worlds are so different, but to them that’s not what matters. Too bad the rest of the world has to get in their way.

Who Put This Song On? by Morgan Parker
YA novel, teen
Pitch-perfect novel about a black teenage girl searching for her identity when the world around her views her depression as a lack of faith and blackness as something to be politely ignored.

Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh
Adult nonfiction
An eye-opening memoir of working-class poverty in America that will deepen our understanding of the ways in which class shapes our country.

When the Call You a Terrorist by Patrisse Khan-Cullors & Asha Bandela
Adult nonfiction
A poetic and powerful memoir about what it means to be a Black woman in America―and the co-founding of a movement that demands justice for all in the land of the free.

Boys & Sex by Peggy Orenstein
Adult nonfiction
The author of the groundbreaking New York Times bestsellers Girls & Sex and Cinderella Ate My Daughter now turns her focus to the sexual lives of young men, once again offering both an examination of sexual culture and a guide on how to improve it.

Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper
Adult nonfiction
So what if it’s true that Black women are mad as hell? They have the right to be. In the Black feminist tradition of Audre Lorde, Brittney Cooper reminds us that anger is a powerful source of energy that can give us the strength to keep on fighting.

Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny by Kate Manne
Adult nonfiction
This book is an exploration of misogyny in public life and politics by the moral philosopher and writer Kate Manne. It argues that misogyny should not be understood primarily in terms of the hatred or hostility some men feel toward all or most women. Rather, it’s primarily about controlling, policing, punishing, and exiling the “bad” women who challenge male dominance.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Adult fiction
Homegoing follows the parallel paths of two sisters and their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Yaa Gyasi’s extraordinary novel illuminates slavery’s troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayed—and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation.

The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona Eltahawy
Adult nonfiction
A bold and uncompromising feminist manifesto that shows women and girls how to defy, disrupt, and destroy the patriarchy by embracing the qualities they’ve been trained to avoid.