From queens to anarchists, and from dancers to astronauts (and at least one who was both,) women have been making history since history began. Celebrate Women’s History Month with some of your favorite heroines (both real and fictional), and maybe even find some new ones on the list below.

At the Library

Children

• Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart by Candace Fleming
• Agent Most Wanted: The Never-Before-Told Story of the Most Dangerous Spy of World War II by Sonia Purnell
• Betty Before X by Ilyasah Shabazz
• Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
• A Computer Called Katherine: How Katherine Johnson Helped Put America On the Moon by Suzanne Slade 
• Counting on Katherine: How Katherine Johnson Saved Apollo 13 by Helaine Becker
• Dolores Huerta: a Hero to Migrant Workers by Sarah Warren 
• Eleanor by Barbara Cooney
• Elizabeth Started All the Trouble by Doreen Rappaport
• Frida Kahlo: the Artist Who Painted Herself by Margaret Frith
• Get Ella to the Apollo by Lisa Mullarkey
• Girls Who Rocked the World:Heroines from Joan of Arc to Mother Teresa by Michelle Roehm McCann
• The Girl Who Thought In Pictures: The Story of Dr. Temple Grandin by Julia Finley Mosca
• Harriet Tubman by George Sullivan
• Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad by David A. Adler
• Harriet Tubman, a Woman of Courage by Renee Skelton
• Hedy Lamarr’s Double Life by Laurie Wallmark
• Helen Keller by George Sullivan
• Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
• Jazz Age Josephine by Jonah Winter
• Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker by Patricia Hruby Powell
• Let It Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters by Andrea Davis Pinkney
• Madam C.J. Walker: Self-Made Businesswoman by Della A. Yannuzzi
• Mae Jemison by Jennifer Strand 
• Mae Jemison: the First African American Woman Astronaut by Liza N. Burby
• Mother Jones: One Woman’s Fight for Labor by Betsy Harvey Kraft 
• Only Passing Through: the Story of Sojourner Truth by Anne F. Rockwell
• A Picture Book of Harriet Tubman by David A. Adler
• A Picture Book of Sojourner Truth by David A. Adler
• The Radium Girls: The Scary but True Story of the Poison that Made People Glow in the Dark by Kate Moore
• Reaching for the Moon: the Autobiography of NASA Mathematician Katherine Johnson by Katherine G. Johnson
• Rosie Revere Engineer by Andrea Beaty
• Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez & Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation by Duncan Tonatiuh
• Sojourner Truth by Peter Roop
• Sojourner Truth’s Step-Stomp Stride by Andrea Davis Pinkney
• Sojourner Truth and the Voice of Freedom by Jane Shumate
• Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges
• When Marian Sang: the True Recital of Marian Anderson, the Voice of a Century by Pam Muñoz Ryan 
• Who is Malala Yousafzi? by Dinah Brown
• Who Was Helen Keller? by Gare Thompson
• Who Was Sojourner Truth? by Yona Seldis McDonough
• Who Was Susan B. Anthony? by Pam Pollack
• Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s Fastest Woman by Kathleen Krull
• Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World by Rachel Ignotofsky
• Find the American Girl books! We have books about Felicity, Samantha, Kirsten, Molly, Kit, Julie, and Rebecca here at the library.
• Find the Nancy Drew books! 
• Find the Junie B. Jones books!

Teens

• Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card by Sara Saedi
• Bad Girls of Fashion: Style Rebels from Cleopatra to Lady Gaga by Jennifer Croll
• Becoming: Adapted for Young Readers by Michelle Obama
• Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
• Courage to Soar: A Body in Motion, a Life in Balance by Simone Biles
• Double Victory: How African American Women Broke Race and Gender Barriers to Help Win World War II by Cheryl Mullenbach
• Gamer Girls: 25 Women Who Built the Video Game Industry by Mary Kenney
• Hidden Figures: the Untold True Story of Four African- American Women Who Helped Launch Our Nation Into Space by Margot Lee Shetterly
• I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World by Malala Yousafzi
• I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez
• The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee
• Mary Shelley, Frankenstein’s Creator: The First Science Fiction Writer by Joan Kane Nichols
• A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly
• Sonia Sotomayor: the First Latina Supreme Court Justice by John Torres
• Super Women: Six Scientists Who Changed the World by Laurie Lawlor
• Temple Grandin: How the Girl Who Loved Cows Embraced Autism and Changed the World by Sy Montgomery
• Ten Days a Madwoman: The Daring Life and Turbulent Times of the Original “Girl” Reporter, Nellie Bly by Deborah Noyes
• The Truths We Hold: An American Journey by Kamala Harris
• We Are Displaced: My Journey and Stories from Refugee Girls Around the World by Malala Yousafzi
• When I was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago
• The Woman All Spies Fear: Code Breaker Elizabeth Smith Friedman and Her Hidden Life by Amy Butler Greenfield

Adults

Note: you don’t need to restrict yourself to non-fiction– check out the historical fiction titles marked with a double asterisk (**)!

• Alice Paul: Equality For Women by Christina A. Lunardini
• All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, A Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles
• American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans by Eve LaPlante
• Aretha: From These Roots by Aretha Franklin
• Band of Sisters: A Novel by Laren Willig**
• Beyond the Myth: The Story of Joan of Arc by Polly Schoyer Brooks
• The Book of Gutsy Women by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton
• Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers Who Helped Win World War II by Liza Mundy
• Code Name Lise: The True Story of World War II’s Most Highly Decorated Woman by Larry Loftis
• D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II by Sarah Rose
• Dear Abigail: The Lives, Sorrows, Triumphs, and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters by Diane Jacobs
• Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz
• The Dressmakers of Auschwitz: The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive by Lucy Adlington
• Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World by Matthew Goodman
• Eleanor by David Michaelis
• Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair That Shaped A First Lady by Susan Quinn
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton: An American Life by Lori D. Ginzberg
• Ella Fitzgerald by Bud Kliment
• Enchantress of Numbers: A Novel of Ada Lovelace by Jennifer Chiaverini**
• The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice by Patricia Bell-Scott
• Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation by Cokie Roberts
• The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah**
• Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel
• Girl in Black and White: the Story of Mary Mildred Williams and the Abolition Movement by Jessie Morgan-Owens
• The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars by Dava Sobel
• Harriet Tubman: the Life and the Life Stories by Jean McMahon Humez
• Harriet Tubman: the Road to Freedom by Catherine Clinton
• Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
• In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez**
• The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd**
• Irena’s Children: The Extraordinary Story of the Woman Who Saved 2,500 Children from the Warsaw Ghetto by Tilar J. Mazzeo
• The Island of Sea Women: A Novel by Lisa See**
• Katharine Parr, the Sixth Wife: A Novel by Alison Weir**
• Find more historical fiction based on Tudor women by Alison Weir!
• The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner**
• Mademoiselle Chanel by C. W. Gortner**
• Marie Curie and Her Daughters: The Private Lives of Science’s First Family by Shelley Emling
• My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor
• My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg
• The Mystery of Mrs. Christie: A Novel by Marie Benedict**
• Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon
• The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict**
• The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory**
• The Paris Library: A Novel by Janet Skeslien Charles**
• Pelosi by Molly Ball
• The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict**
• The Quintland Sisters: A Novel by Shelley Wood**
• The Rose Code by Kate Quinn**
• The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore
• The Shadow King: A Novel by Maaza Mengiste**
• She Came to Slay: the Life and Times of Harriet Tubman by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
• Sojourner Truth: a Life, a Symbol by Nell Irvin Painter
• The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
• The Subway Girls by Susie Orman Schnall**
• Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle For the Vote by Ellen Carol DuBois
• Tough Mothers: Amazing Stories of History’s Mightiest Matriarchs by Jason Porath
• A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell
• The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear by Kate Moore
• The Women Who Made New York by Julie Scelfo
• The Woman Who Read Too Much: A Novel by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani**

Movies

• Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth
• Elizabeth: The Golden Age
• The Danish Girl
• Harriet
• Hidden Figures
• RBG
• Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am
• Victoria: The Complete First Season

Borrow Online

Overdrive

• American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson (available as ebook or audiobook)
• Bygone Badass Broads by Mackenzi Lee (available as ebook)
• Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy and Hard Times by Jennifer Worth (available as audiobook)
• The Girls by Emma Cline (available as ebook and audiobook)
• The Huntress by Kate Quinn (available as ebook or audiobook)
• Lady Clementine: A Novel by Marie Benedict (available as ebook)
• The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos by Judy Batalion (available as audiobook)
• The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore (available as ebook or audiobook)
• Rebel Cinderella: From Rags to Riches to Radical, the Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes by Adam Hochschild (available as ebook or  audiobook)
• The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women in the CIA by Liza Mundy (available as ebook or audiobook)
• That Churchill Woman: A Novel by Stephanie Barron (available as audiobook)
• A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes (available as audiobook)
• Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell’s Invisible Life by Anna Funder (available as ebook or audiobook)
• The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote by Elaine Weiss (available as audiobook)
• We Came Here to Shine by Susie Orman Schnall (available as audiobook)
• Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine by Olivia Campbell (available as ebook or audiobook)
• The Women’s Suffrage Movement by Sally Roesch Wagner (available as ebook)

Hoopla

• The Girls Who Fought Crime:The Untold True Story of Country’s First First Female Investigator and Her Crime Fighting Squad by Mari K. Eder (available as ebook)
• Learning to See: A Novel of Dorothea Lange, the Woman Who Revealed the Real America by Elise Hooper (available as ebook or audiobook)
• A Light of Her Own by Carrie Callaghan (available as ebook)
• Mission France: The True History of the Women of SOE by Kate Vigurs (available as audiobook)
• My Notorious Life by Kate Manning (available as audiobook)
• The Pirate’s Wife: The Remarkable True Story of Sarah Kidd by Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos (available as ebook or audiobook)
• The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore (available as ebook or audiobook)
• Rebel Cinderella: From Rags to Riches to Radical, the Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes by Adam Hochschild (available as ebook or audiobook)
• The Secrets of Mary Bowser by Lois Leveen (available as ebook or audiobook)
• A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes (available as ebook or audiobook)
• Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine by Olivia Campbell (available as ebook or audiobook)

Kanopy

• Ammonite
• Call the Midwife (series 1, series 2, series 3, series 4, series 5, series 6)
• The Girls in the Band
• Great Unsung Women of Computing
• Patsy Mink: Ahead of the Majority
• Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict
• Portrait of a Lady on Fire
• Rachel Carson: The Woman Who Launched the Modern Environmental Movement
• RBG
• The Sturgeon Queens: Four Generations of A Jewish Family Business in New York
• The Triangle Fire
• Union Maids:Women Activists Share Their Experiences
• Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues

Pelham Seed Library Restock

  Thanks to Eco Pel's Fall Seed Saving Workshop they hosted at the Library, our Seed Library has been restocked for the fall. Stop by and take a look! For the 2025 growing season we have partnered with the Environmental Coalition of the Pelhams (EcoPel) to offer a seed library for the first time. What is a seed…

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Adult Summer Reading Bingo Winner is Betsy Wines

And we have a BINGO! Betsy is now the proud owner of a new Kindle! Betsy has completed our Summer Reading Bingo a few times and this is the year she won! Her daughter has been urging Betsy to get a kindle, so of course she was the first person Betsy told when she won.…

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United Way Coat Drive

The Town of Pelham Public Library is proud to partner with United Way for a coat drive from Wednesday, October 1 through Wednesday, October 22. United Way is seeking coats (new or gently used) and accessories (new hats, gloves, and socks). All genders and sizes are accepted. A box is located at the Library by…

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CANCELED: Westchester County Clerk Mobile Office Visit: October 2

The Pelham Library regrets to inform our community that the Passport Mobile Truck’s scheduled visit on October 2, 2025 has been canceled due to changes in federal guidelines beyond our control. We know this is disappointing news and sincerely appreciate your understanding. Do you need to apply for a passport, or get yours renewed? Do…

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Diaper Drive September 2-23

This year the Pelham Library is participating in the Sharing Shelf's annual drive to provide diapers for non-profits countywide. From September 2nd through September 23rd, you may drop off diapers at the Library to help local children in need. We are seeking wipes and diapers in ALL sizes, but the most acute needs are sizes 4, 5, 6…

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Pelham Kindergarteners, Get Your First Library Card This Saturday!

K-Day is coming! The Pelham Public Library’s K-Day is an annual event when Pelham children entering kindergarten can get their first library cards.  This year, it will be held on Saturday, September 13st from 10 am-2 pm.  We'll have a petting zoo, arts and crafts, and goody bags for the new cardholders. To save time please, preregister…

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Back to School Drive August 1-22

We're excited to announce that our library is a drop-off site for NEW school supplies for The Sharing Shelf's annual effort to provide school supplies to local students! From August 1 through August 21, you can help make a difference for local children in need. The Sharing Shelf is seeking NEW school supplies for students from Pre-K…

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Teen Talk Summer Series with Hope’s Door: New Time!

This summer, the Library will host a Teen Talk Summer Series from Hope's Door, to raise awareness about teen dating violence. This program is specifically for teens ages 13-18 and takes place Monday, July  21 from 12:30-1:30 pm and Mondays August 4 and 18 from 4:30-5:30 pm. Hope’s Door is a non-profit that seeks to end…

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Summer Reading at the Library

You might think that summer reading programs are just for kids, but here at the library it’s for everyone! Adults and teens in 9th grade and up can play our Reading BINGO game starting on June 20. Once you complete a BINGO you can enter a raffle to win a brand-new Kindle! You can get the…

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Pride Month Resources

Celebrate LGBTQIA+ Pride Month with this mix of history, memoirs, resources, romances, and stories where we can see ourselves reflected. You can also browse the Stonewall Book Awards List to find more exceptional books about the LGBTQIA+ experience going back to 1971. You can also peruse PFLAG’s Transgender Reading List for Adults…

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