‘Tis the season for some kickass female empowerment, we say! And a new children’s book is delivering exactly the kind of message we love, just in time for the holidays.
‘The Girl Who Becomes Santa Claus’ was created by Mark Yates and illustrated by the talented Hanna Lee. Initially brought to life by a Kickstarter campaign, the author, based in Prague, Czech Republic shares in a description how a conversation with his own daughter inspired the idea behind this book.
“My 4-year-old girl asked a simple question: Why doesn’t Mrs. Claus get to deliver toys? Then came another: Why does she even have to be married to deliver the presents? After talking about it, we decided there was no reason a female couldn’t do Santa’s job. My daughter asked me to write a story where a girl became Santa. She then suggested we turn it into a book so we can show it to others. We read through hundreds of kids’ books, analyzing form, length, and structure to finalize our story,” he explained.
We gotta admit, those are some damn good questions, which is exactly why we need more books like this for young girls – to help them question the systems and “rules” laid out that dictate what certain genders can do. Instead of asking “why would a girl be Santa Claus?” we like the notion of “why NOT?!”
Mark goes on to describe how pop culture needs to see more female lead characters and heroes on screen, and seeing Santa Claus as a young girls breaks another elusive glass ceiling that hasn’t fully been explored yet. Why not?!
“We need more books for 4-8-year-olds that feature girl empowerment. Although we live in the age of Captain Marvel and DC Superhero Girls, boys still dominate kids’ books. The market is saturated with animals (mostly boys), Dr. Seuss-like kids and creatures (mostly boys), and of course boys (all boys). Even the works of Julia Donaldson (whom we love) have more boys than girls. There are girls here and there. But not enough. And when they do appear, very few reach for the stars. With ‘The Girl Who Becomes Santa Claus’, we hope to add to the growing body of self-produced work designed to inspire girls who dream big,” he said
Mark initially wanted to self-publish but after much thought, he decided that the message was too important not to explore all avenues to get this book out into the world.
“We want to do much more than simply make the book available on Amazon. We want to create a community and generate excitement. After some research, we decided Kickstarter would be a great way to get things rolling,” he said.
Crowd-funding can indeed do more than just fund a project. It has become a great way to cut out the “middle man” and allow creators to launch projects on their own, while building an audience to show future investors that their ideas has legs.
As we’ve seen from numerous projects we’ve promoted on our site, crowd-funding has also been a way to bypass potentially misogynistic or close-minded barriers and share more messages and projects about female characters, female empowerment and feminism, to help women both young and old dream big and know their potential.
You can learn more about ‘The Girl Who Becomes Santa Claus’ by checking out the Kickstarter page, going to the website, or ordering it on Amazon for the girl in your life who has big dreams for the future!
