Women’s History Month offers a time to reflect on how far we’ve come—and how far we yet have to go. I appreciate the importance of centering women’s experiences in literature: As people who are marginalized despite making up half the world’s population, too many dominant narratives and social standards that infuse popular media undervalue or actively (if subtly) denigrate women. Teen girls and the things they love are especially vulnerable to arrogant dismissal. These attitudes carry over and have an impact beyond the book world, as Shannon Hale astutely points out in her Washington Post editorial, “What are we teaching boys when we discourage them from reading books about girls?” She writes:

“Stories make us human. We form bonds by swapping personal stories with others, and reading fiction is a deeply immersive exercise in empathy.”

Hale goes on, “What happens to a boy who is taught he should be ashamed of reading a book about a girl? For feeling empathy for a girl? For trying to understand how she feels? For caring about her? What kind of a man does that boy grow up to be?”

Even more sadly, female teachers and librarians are all too often complicit in perpetuating this bias. What can you do? Check out a few recent and forthcoming titles by women authors that explore life through the eyes of teen girls and young women. Recommend them widely. They will resonate with and make wonderful reads for people of any gender.

Robin Ha's Almost American Girl (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins, Jan. 28) is a graphic memoir by a young woman who grew up in South Korea until age 14, when her single mother decided to marry into a Korean immigrant family in Alabama. Ha struggled to fit in with her new stepfamily and new home country—experiencing cruel bullying from both. She also experienced the many ways women’s and girls’ behavior is policed. Hers is an uplifting story of courage and resilience. (You can read an interview with the author here.)

Girls’ intense friendships are the focus of When You Were Everything by Ashley Woodfolk (Delacorte, March 10). Losing a close friend can be just as heartbreaking as losing a romantic relationship, but relatively few books take such care to show how BFFs sometimes aren’t forever in a way that is nonblaming and avoids tired stereotypes about teenage girls. This novel offers no easy answers but sensitively explores the impact of these losses and the growth of self-awareness.

J. Albert Mann delves into the disturbing history of the institutionalization of vulnerable people in The Degenerates (Atheneum, March 17), historical fiction based on detailed research into the eugenics movement and deliberate efforts to segregate and erase from public life those whose lives were deemed to have less value due to disability and other factors. Girls and women were often targeted for out-of-wedlock pregnancies. Mann sensitively pays tribute to the many who suffered this fate.

Tigers, Not Daughters by Samantha Mabry (Algonquin, March 24) is a magical meditation on grief: Three sisters in San Antonio are torn apart by the death of their oldest sister, who returns to haunt them. As our review says, “the male gaze is the true enemy in this novel, and it’s only when the young women join forces that they’re able to break free of its oppressive ties.” With its richly realized setting and characters, this story is haunting in more ways than one.

Grief is also the subject of Tyler Feder’s graphic memoir, Dancing at the Pity Party (Dial, April 14). The death of a parent is never easy, but losing a mother to cancer as a college sophomore is hard in ways that Feder describes with honesty, vulnerability, and wry humor. Compounding this challenge are the confusion and discomfort of well-intentioned friends and acquaintances. This volume is a memorable tribute to the mother-daughter bond and the endurance of motherly love. —L.S.

Laura Simeon is the young adult editor.