I always liked the Pleasant Company books that went with the American Girl dolls. They gave girls a pretty good idea of what it was like to grow up in the periods and areas that they were living in. They gave a prett good feel for what it was like for children, as well as what it was like for their whole family. The victorian one even goes into a little bit of the women's rights movement and child labor in the factories. At the end of every book they have a "This Year in History" section that goes through a lot of what was really happening in that period in the area the girl lived, especially things that had an impact on the story and the girls life. The same company I believe also has a series of books for older girls that focuses on world history.

If you go to the library, they may be able to suggest some good titles. I just wish I could remember the ones I used to read. There's a huge number of historical fictions written from a woman's perspective, as well as biographies of famous women. I'll also ask my aunt. She used to be a school teacher, but she's finding that she's in stronger and stronger support of homeschooling. She'll be helping me a lot. If she's got any good suggestions, I'll pass them on.

I think the suggestion of the library is a great idea because you can check the books out, read them, and then see if that is something you want in your personal collection. Here are four books from my personal library that I can highly recommend.

Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years
(Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times)
by Elizabeth Wayland Barber

Wise Women
(Over 2,000 Years of Spiritual Writings by Women)
edited by Susan Cahill

The Prospect Before Her
(A History of Women in Western Europe, 1500-1800)
by Olwen Hufton

When the Drummers Were Women
(A Spiritual History of Rhythm)
by Layne Redmond

Thanks for the posts! I will add those to my list. I have a running list of stuff I am looking for online, it is crazy how cheap you can get used books for online, I picked up five books for $12 through amazon's "buy used" option. I just have to make sure the ones I find all come through the same store so that there is only one shipping price and it is a steal.

I have already started going through websites like www.astr.ua.edu/4000WS/bioframe.html and slowly trying to find used books that are about or mention any of these women. And slowly searching for used conterparts to the ones on the list in the store on the National Organization for Women website www.now.org/

It's not that I only want her to learn this because she is a girl, I am just trying to balance the guy history with the girl history.."how white men affected the world" is an overdone view in history classes and I am hoping to bring some different viewpoints. I would be doing the same thing if I had a boy...some mom said to me "why would my boy want to learn about Clara Barton?" like he shouldn't be interested in the history of the Red Cross just because she was a women. We had been reading about the Civil War and he loved all the war stuff...if more guys were giving the true facts about the casualties and dealing with the injured when they were young maybe there would be less glamour associated with going to war.