Contact: Daniel De Simone; 760.703.0948
To celebrate Presidents Day and Women’s History Month, the Center for American Women and Politics wants kids to hear a great story that teaches an important lesson about leadership. To make sure that happens, CAWP has sent books to women lawmakers around the nation, who will read the story to girls and boys in their districts. After reading the story to children, the lawmakers will donate their copies to school libraries.
Grace for President tells about a girl who, stunned to discover that all U.S. presidents have been men, decides to kick off her own political career by running for president of her class. She faces off against a popular boy and wins in a surprising way.
The lesson? That women – whether Grace or the legislator who’s reading the story – can run for office, win, and lead.
“Many children, asked to name a leader, think first of men – the leaders they see most often in the news, the ones celebrated with holidays and statues,” notes Debbie Walsh, director of CAWP, a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University.
“As kids see more women leaders, it becomes easier to envision wider possibilities – including, for girls, the chance that they could step into such roles themselves, ” adds CAWP’s associate director, Jean Sinzdak.
Grace for President, written by Kelly DiPucchio with illustrations by LeUyen Pham, also provides an introduction to the electoral system, as Grace’s classmates are assigned to represent states with varied numbers of electoral votes.
The book, published by Disney-Hyperion, was distributed to every woman in Congress and in the legislatures in all 50 states by Teach a Girl to Lead™, a CAWP initiative to inspire girls and young women to follow in the footsteps of women leaders, past and present. According to Walsh, “Making women’s political leadership visible to America’s youth will help both boys and girls grow up with more inclusive ideas about who can lead.”
Support for distributing the book came from the Hess Foundation.
Contact: Daniel De Simone; 760.703.0948