Villari's Martial Arts Women's Forum

07/14/2026

NEVER let a man silence your voice!

On the morning of June 18, 1860, Elizabeth Packard kissed her six children and had no idea it would be the last normal morning of her life for years.
By that afternoon, she was locked inside the Jacksonville Insane Asylum in Illinois.
Her crime? She disagreed with her husband.
Theophilus Packard was a respected Calvinist minister. His wife, Elizabeth, was a sharp, thoughtful woman who had begun questioning his theology — openly, in Bible study classes, without apology. She believed in free will. He believed in predestination. She said so out loud.
Under Illinois law at the time, that was enough.
A husband could have his wife committed to an asylum on little more than his word alone — no real hearing, no meaningful defense, no burden of proof. Elizabeth, 43 years old and the mother of six, had no legal identity of her own. The law didn't see her as a person to be protected. It saw her as a problem to be managed.
She could have broken. She didn't.
Instead, she started writing.
Hidden in the seams of her clothing, tucked beneath floorboards, she filled notebooks with the truth. Every woman she met. Every story. Every injustice she witnessed. The asylum, she discovered, was not full of women who were mentally ill. It was full of women who were inconvenient — committed for managing money, for praying too much, for having opinions their husbands didn't like.
She wasn't just documenting her own story. She was building a case.
In 1863, the asylum released her — declaring her "incurably insane," as if her refusal to surrender her mind was itself the evidence of madness. She came home to find her husband had locked her in the nursery, nailed the windows shut, and was planning to have her recommitted.
She managed to drop a single letter out the window.
That letter reached a judge.
In January 1864, Elizabeth Packard stood before a jury. The trial lasted five days. She was calm. She was prepared. She read from three years of carefully hidden notes, describing case after case of women imprisoned for the most ordinary of reasons. She didn't ask for pity. She presented evidence.
The jury deliberated for seven minutes.
Completely sane. Unquestionably sane.
But freedom wasn't enough for Elizabeth Packard.
She published her notebooks. She traveled state to state, nearly penniless, testifying before legislatures and speaking to anyone who would listen. In 1867, Illinois passed sweeping commitment reform — requiring medical evidence, legal representation, and the right to a jury trial before any person could be institutionalized. Other states followed.
She won custody of her children. She kept writing into her eighties. She never stopped.
Elizabeth Packard died on July 25, 1897, at the age of 80. Her obituary called her "the reformer of insane asylum methods."
She had spent 37 years ensuring that what happened to her would be harder — much harder — to do to someone else.
Her husband used the law to silence her.
She rewrote the law instead.
In 2023 — over 160 years later — the State of Illinois renamed a mental health center in her honor, removing the name of the very psychiatrist who had declared her incurably insane and replacing it with hers.
She waited a long time. But history got it right.
Her name was Elizabeth Packard. 1816–1897.
Imprisoned for thinking for herself.
She made sure the law would never make it that easy again.
If this story moved you — share it. The best way to honor someone who refused to be silenced is to keep their voice alive.

06/07/2026

Olivia Book was born with a congenital limb difference -- her right arm ends just above the elbow and is significantly smaller than her left, with limited mobility. In February, the 23-year-old ballerina, pictured here in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," was promoted to the corps de ballet at Ballet West in Salt Lake City, making her one of the first professional ballerinas with a limb difference. "I sometimes can't believe it," she said.

The corps de ballet is built on sameness. The whole task is to move as one -- identical lines, identical timing, a single body multiplied across the stage. Olivia has spent her life learning to meet that standard with a body that doesn't match it. During a 2024 production of "Swan Lake," a practiced eye could still find her among the rows of swans -- not because she broke the line, but because of how cleanly she met it: the precision in her footwork, the quiet control in how she carried her upper body.

Olivia grew up in Grimsby, Ontario. She started dancing at 3 and got serious about ballet when she received her first pointe shoes at 12. She loved the challenge -- and the elegance. "I just loved how elegant and graceful they looked, and I knew it was hard work, but they made it look so easy, and I really wanted to be like that," she said. But for years, she wasn't sure the dream was possible. "There was always that little voice in my head that didn't know if it would ever be possible to be a professional," she said, "but I loved continuing to work at ballet."

What she calls her "little arm" forced her to rely on her left arm for nearly everything -- including, eventually, ballet itself. As a girl she could grip the barre with her right hand, but as she grew, she no longer could, and she learned to do barre work as though she were already in the center of the room, balancing on her own.

Her childhood teacher had a small barre built at a height her right arm could reach; later, Olivia and her father designed an attachment that could be secured to any barre, which she carried on the plane when she moved to Utah. Unable to use her right arm to steady her turns and balances the way other dancers do, she learned to rely on her back muscles instead -- a habit that became one of her strengths. Turns, she says, are now among her favorite things to do.

She was discovered in 2018, when Ballet West's artistic director, Adam Sklute, was judging a competition in Toronto. Some of the judges suggested giving her a special award. "I said, 'Well, I'm not sure we need to give her a special award. Let's see how she does in the competition,'" Sklute recalled. "And when the scores came out, she scored quite high."

He offered her a place at the company's school on the spot. Olivia trained at the Ballet West Academy beginning in 2019, spent two years as a student, two as a company trainee, and three in the second company, Ballet West II, before this year's promotion. "She's hard working, she's smart, and she has a positive attitude," Sklute said. "You can't ask for anything more in a company member."

Olivia is careful not to let her difference define her, and she's clear-eyed that her story is not mainly one of hardship. "I've been really fortunate not to have had a lot of barriers," she said. "For the most part, I feel like it was in my own head, growing up, and not coming from the people around me."

Most of her challenges, she says, have simply been about making ballet technique work for her body -- balancing with one smaller arm, dancing pas de deux with only one hand as the connection point with her partner. When a recent "Nutcracker" role called for her to grasp a hanging prop with her right hand, her solution was simple: she lifted her left arm across and overhead and held it that way, without anyone needing to rewrite the steps for her. "I never want to have to change the choreography too much," she said. "I always want to find that balance where I can honor the choreography and still be a part of it."

Her promotion has placed her in the spotlight in a new way, and with it a new weight. Bradford Chin, an assistant professor of dance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison whose work examines dance and disability, says Olivia's rise could reshape how the art form thinks about bodies. "It allows us to question how we conceptualize what a healthy body looks like," he said, "and how we're approaching the idea of what makes a qualified dancer."

Long before the promotion, other dancers had already started looking to her. "I've met so many other dancers who have limb differences," she said, "and when they say they look up to me or I inspire them to keep going or chase their dreams, it means so much to me."

Looking forward, Olivia dreams of dancing the canon's great soloist and principal roles. But for now, the joy she finds onstage is in something quieter -- the camaraderie of moving as one with everyone around her. She thinks back to that run of "Swan Lake." "That was really a highlight for me -- like 'Wow, I'm onstage being a ballerina,'" she said. "Everyone's dancing the same and very much in unison, so for me to be a part of that group was just really special."

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For picture books celebrating Mighty Girls who love to dance, visit our blog post "Dancing Her Heart Out: 20 Picture Books About Mighty Girls Who Love to Dance," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=12378

For a heartwarming and hilarious middle grade novel about a girl who thrives despite her "lack of armage," we highly recommend "Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus" for ages 9 to 13 (https://www.amightygirl.com/insignificant-events-in-the-life-of-a-cactus) and its sequel, "Momentous Events in the Life of a Cactus" (https://www.amightygirl.com/momentous-events-in-the-life-of-a-cactus)

This beloved novel has also been adapted into a fun chapter book series starring Aven, an armless Mighty Girl who loves solving mysteries, which begins with "Aven Green, Sleuthing Machine" for ages 6 to 9 at https://www.amightygirl.com/aven-green-sleuthing-machine

For an inspiring memoir by Jordan Reeves, a Mighty Girl growing up with a limb difference, we recommend "Born Just Right" for ages 8 to 11 at https://www.amightygirl.com/born-just-right

There are also several fantastic books about Mighty Girls who pursue their dreams after leg amputations: "Rescue and Jessica" for ages 5 to 9 (https://www.amightygirl.com/rescue-and-jessica), “The Running Dream” for ages 12 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/the-running-dream), and “A Time To Dance” for ages 13 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/a-time-to-dance)

For more books that encourage understanding and acceptance of people with disabilities of all varieties, visit our blog post "Many Ways To Be Mighty: 25 Books Starring Mighty Girls with Disabilities" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=12992

To read a new article about her in The New York Times, visit https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/29/arts/dance/olivia-book-ballet-west-limb-difference.html?unlocked_article_code=1.oFA.0V6Y.mZBq_28JcZxo&smid=url-share

Photo by Lauren Wattenburg

05/25/2026

In 1992, a young woman named MacKenzie Tuttle graduated from Princeton University with a degree in English literature. She had studied under Toni Morrison, who later called her one of the best creative writing students she had ever taught. Sharp, disciplined, and gifted with language, MacKenzie took a job at a high-performing New York hedge fund called D.E. Shaw, where a conventional career in finance seemed to await her.
Then she met Jeff Bezos.
He had an unusual idea — selling books on the internet. Most people who heard it dismissed it. MacKenzie did not. She married him in 1993, helped pack their belongings into a car, and drove cross-country to Bellevue, Washington. In a rented garage, with a few computers and no guarantee of anything, they built Amazon together. In those earliest days there were no vast teams or polished systems. There were two people packing boxes, answering customer calls, writing business materials, and building something from nothing.
She was there at the very beginning of all of it.
As Amazon grew into a global force, MacKenzie stepped back to raise their four children and pursue her own writing. She published two well-regarded novels, taught writing, and lived quietly and largely out of public view for most of the next two decades.
Then, in January 2019, Jeff Bezos announced their div*rce. The settlement gave MacKenzie approximately four percent of Amazon's shares — worth roughly $36 to $38 billion at the time — making her one of the wealthiest people on earth, essentially overnight.
What she did next is what this story is actually about.
Within months, she signed the Giving Pledge, a commitment to donate the majority of her wealth to charitable causes. Her letter explaining the decision was short and striking. She did not describe the fortune as her personal achievement. She described it as something built by the collective labor of countless people — something that needed to be returned, not kept.
She meant it.
She built a small, focused team and created a philanthropic initiative called Yield Giving. The approach was deliberately different from how most billionaires give. No lengthy applications. No required progress reports. No conditions attached. No press releases issued in her name. Instead, her team quietly identified organizations doing serious, underfunded work in overlooked communities — then called them out of nowhere and told them a large unrestricted gift was on its way.
Many recipients thought it was a scam. Some asked the caller to repeat the number. Others wept.
She gave hundreds of millions to Historically Black Colleges and Universities — the largest single gift in the institutional history of many of them. She gave $436 million to Habitat for Humanity. She directed enormous gifts to food banks, climate organizations, racial equity groups, women's health initiatives, immigration services, rural communities, tribal colleges, shelters, and prison reform programs — causes that larger, more image-conscious philanthropists had long considered too unglamorous or too complicated.
In 2025 alone, she donated $7.17 billion to 186 organizations. That single year of giving exceeded the entire lifetime charitable giving of her former husband. Her total giving since 2019 now stands at $26.3 billion across more than 2,700 organizations. Forbes places her third among all living philanthropists in lifetime giving — behind only Warren Buffett and Bill Gates — and she reached that position in just six years.
Her net worth still sits at approximately $38 to $40 billion despite all of it. The stock keeps rising faster than she can give it away.
Here is the part most people do not know.
MacKenzie Scott did not grow up wealthy. At Princeton, she struggled. A local dentist once gave her free dental work after seeing her use denture glue on a broken tooth because she could not afford care. A college roommate loaned her $1,000 when she was nearly unable to pay tuition and on the edge of dropping out. Those two small acts of generosity from strangers never left her. They are part of why she gives the way she does — quietly, without transaction, without expecting anything back.
She has no named buildings. No branded foundation. No public speeches. She does not attend galas in her honor because she does not hold them. In her 2025 year-end essay, she described herself as one small part of a much larger story — the dollar total of her giving a tiny fraction of the care being shared into communities every year by ordinary people.
She is also a novelist. A mother of four. A woman who once worked in a garage when a company had nothing, and who is now systematically redistributing a fortune built from that same company — not to cement a legacy, but simply because she believes other people need it more than she does.
There is a word for that.
Not philanthropy. Not strategy.
Just generosity. The same kind a dentist once showed a young woman with a br*ken tooth, and a roommate showed a friend who was crying over tuition.
It ripples forward.
Apparently, it always does.

05/25/2026

This Memorial Day, "we pause to honor all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, their courage, their commitment, and the immeasurable loss felt by those who loved them. When we reflect on the significance of this day, it is imperative that we learn who the fallen were, not just by name but by character and their stories.

Among those we remember are the servicewomen who made the ultimate sacrifice in the conflicts that followed September 11th. Their stories are less often shared, however, deserve to be told and kept alive.

Today we encourage you to learn their names, their stories, and their final resting places." -- Foundation for Women Warriors

Read their stories: https://foundationforwomenwarriors.org/honor-her-service-servicewomen-who-made-the-ultimate-sacrifice-since-9-11

For a touching picture book that introduces children to a powerful ceremony of remembrance for military members who didn't come home, we recommend "America's White Table" for ages 6 to 10 at https://www.amightygirl.com/america-s-white-table

For a children's book that gives groundbreaking women in the military, past and present, the respect they deserve, we highly recommend "Heroism Begins With Her: Inspiring Stories of Bold, Brave, and Gutsy Women in the U.S. Military" for ages 9 and up at https://www.amightygirl.com/heroism-begins-with-her

For two excellent books for teen and adult readers about women's heroism during wartime, check out "Women Heroes of World War II" (https://www.amightygirl.com/women-heroes-of-world-war-ii) and "Women Heroes of World War I" (https://www.amightygirl.com/women-heroes-of-world-war-i)

For more books for children and teens that explore women's diverse contributions during wartime, visit our blog post “The Price of Peace: A Mighty Girl Recognizes Veterans” at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=12356

04/17/2026

We want to congratulate Master Joan Richert on this awesome achievement.

03/19/2026

Thank you to Meryl Streep for standing up for women's history with this incredible gift! When powerful forces are working to diminish and erase women's contributions, telling women's stories isn't just important -- it's an act of resistance.

"Today, we are proud to announce a landmark seven-figure gift from Meryl Streep to the National Women's History Museum.

Throughout her extraordinary career, Meryl has brought to life some of history's most iconic and complex women—from Margaret Thatcher and Julia Child, to Katharine Graham and Karen Silkwood. She has spent decades ensuring that women's stories are told with depth, nuance, and humanity.

Now, she is taking that commitment off the screen and into the future of how America learns and celebrates its history.

One of the Museum's earliest and most steadfast supporters, Meryl’s incredible generosity will help us expand how women’s stories are told through new digital content, educator programs scaling to classrooms nationwide, and a major surge in national visibility as the United States approaches its 250th anniversary. This investment helps ensure the story we tell about our nation is fuller, truer, and more complete.

'History is shaped not only by those who make it, but by those who ensure it is remembered,' said Meryl Streep. 'The National Women’s History Museum has long been a catalyst for bringing forward the stories that deepen our understanding of who we are. I am proud to continue supporting this essential work so that future generations inherit a history that is both truthful and complete.'

Meryl believes women’s stories must be fully recognized, taught, and remembered. So do we.

'As one of the most influential storytellers of our time, Meryl Streep has spent her career illuminating the depth, complexity, and power of women’s lives,' said Susan D. Whiting, Chair of the Board of the National Women’s History Museum. “Her extraordinary generosity, paired with her unwavering commitment to truth, equity, and education, reflects the very mission of this Museum.'" -- via the National Women's History Museum

To support the preservation of women's history, you can make your own contribution to the National Women's History Museum at https://www.womenshistory.org/donation

At A Mighty Girl, we believe young readers deserve to know the inspiring true stories of girls and women who changed the world. Browse our extensive collection of biographies and historical fiction for children and teens at https://www.amightygirl.com/books/history-biography/biography

You can also sort our biography collection by the various role models' specializations from science to the creative arts at https://www.amightygirl.com/books/history-biography?cat=206

For two titles to introduce kids to an assortment of inspiring women role models, we recommend the picture book "Shaking Things Up: 14 Young Women Who Changed the World" for ages 5 to 9 (https://www.amightygirl.com/shaking-things-up), and the illustrated biography "HerStory: 50 Women and Girls Who Shook the World" for ages 8 to 13 (https://www.amightygirl.com/herstory)

For children's books about extraordinary global women, visit our blog post "50 Children's Books About Mighty Girls & Women Around The World" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=33102

And for one of our favorite women's history-themed t-shirts, featuring Harvard professor and Pulitzer Prize winner Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's famous quote "Well behaved women seldom make history," visit https://www.amightygirl.com/well-behaved-women-history-shirt

You can read the full announcement about Meryl Streep generous gift at https://www.womenshistory.org/news/meryl-streep-makes-seven-figure-gift-advance-future-womens-history

03/19/2026

🖋️

03/19/2026

Louise Moerup and her 10-year-old son asked the same question every morning as they passed a naked statue of Venus in a Copenhagen park on the way to school: why aren't there more statues of real women?

Over Christmas, Louise decided to see if she could spark more people to ask that same question. So she knitted a striped halter dress from scrap yarn and slipped it over the goddess's head.

"It wasn't really the nudity that made me want to knit her dress," she said, "but the absence of women who are remembered for their achievements. Knitting the dress was my humorous way to make people look twice and notice what's missing."

What was missing, it turned out, was staggering. A report by the Museum of Art in Public Spaces found 484 monuments in Denmark depicting historically significant men. 43 depicted historically significant women. And more than 120 public sculptures were female n**es -- mythological figures, literary characters, allegorical bodies.

Named and remembered: men. Unnamed and unclothed: women.

Knitters across Denmark picked up their needles. Statues appeared in sweaters, shawls, minidresses, and bikinis. City Council members in Aarhus dressed the three n**e women in their city hall park -- one in a pink minidress, one in a frilly skirt.

"It's important," said council member Matilde Dueholm, "that when young girls and women walk around Aarhus, we also feel represented in the public environment. Not only as beautiful bodies without clothes, but as individuals with agency and power."

Henriette Laursen, director of Denmark's national gender equality center, framed what the knitters understood instinctively: this landscape, she said, maintains the perception that men are the ones who act, while women are the ones who are looked at.

Some people have pushed back at the knitters' campaign, accusing them of puritanism for covering up naked statues. Author Maren Uthaug, who supported the knitting campaign with a call for others to engage in “a little activist-feminist handicraft," argues that's missing the point.

"We don’t want the statues removed, and we don’t really want to cover them up," she explained. "But we can’t make a point by doing something with historical statues -- because they are not there.”

Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt, who had already commissioned a committee to identify women worthy of public commemoration, welcomed the knitters as allies. "I see it as a very unique kind of protesting the present," he said, "in order to have a more equal future."

Last month, the Danish government announced $1.5 million to fund public monuments commemorating historically significant women -- with Tove Ditlevsen, one of Denmark's most celebrated authors, and Bodil Begtrup, the country's first female ambassador, already named as candidates.

As for the dress Louise knitted for Venus that started it all? Curators from the Museum of Copenhagen asked if she would donate it to their collection.

Now, the Venus stands naked again but plans are in the works for statues honoring real women and Louise is thrilled. "If my little knitted intervention helped nudge the conversation forward, I'm glad about that."

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For several uplifting picture books about Mighty Girls who uses fabric crafts to spread kindness and build community, we recommend "Extra Yarn" (https://www.amightygirl.com/extra-yarn) and "A Hat for Mrs. Goldman" (https://www.amightygirl.com/a-hat-for-mrs-goldman), both for ages 4 to 8

For an excellent guide for girls on how to make real change on the issues they can care, we highly recommend "A Smart Girl's Guide: Making A Difference" for ages 8 to 12 at https://www.amightygirl.com/smart-girl-s-guide-making-a-difference

For kids in general, we also recommend "How to Make a Better World: For Every Kid Who Wants to Make a Difference" for ages 7 and up at https://www.amightygirl.com/how-to-make-a-better-world

And to inspire children and teens with stories of real-life girls and women who made a difference on the issues they cared about, visit our blog post, "50 Books About Women Who Fought for Change," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=14364

For hundreds of true stories for children and teens about female trailblazers who deserve to be recognized, visit our “Role Model" biography” section at http://amgrl.co/2wRJudE

To read more about the Danish knitting campaign in The New York Times, visit https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/arts/design/denmark-women-statues-knitting.html?unlocked_article_code=1.RFA.B7jt.pJtrni0TABV2&smid=url-share

02/13/2026

The photograph is striking: an elderly woman holds a faded blue-and-grey striped prison uniform -- the one she was forced to wear in the N**i concentration camps. A red triangle on the fabric marks her as a political prisoner. Her name was Andrée Peel -- known to the French Resistance as "Agent Rose" -- and she kept this garment for the rest of her life as a reminder of what she endured fighting for freedom.

When German soldiers marched into the port city of Brest in June 1940, the 35-year-old beauty salon owner committed her first act of defiance: she hid fleeing French soldiers and found civilian clothes for them so they wouldn't be captured. Days later, when General Charles de Gaulle declared on the radio that "France has lost a battle, but she has not lost the war," Peel and her friends typed out his words and slipped copies through letterboxes across the city.

Within weeks, she was leading an under-section of the Resistance. Under her code name "Agent Rose," she passed intelligence on German naval movements and troop positions to the Allies. Her most dangerous work came at night: she and her team used torches to guide Allied planes to improvised landing strips, then smuggled downed British and American pilots through a network of safe houses to remote beaches, where they escaped on submarines and gunboats. Over three years, she saved the lives of 102 Allied airmen.

In 1943, when the Gestapo closed in on the Brest network, Peel fled to Paris and assumed a new identity. But shortly after D-Day, a fellow Resistance member broke under torture and revealed her location. She was arrested and taken to Gestapo headquarters, where she was stripped and interrogated. The Gestapo tortured her, using methods that included simulated drowning and beating her throat; the damage she suffered from their interrogation would cause her pain for the rest of her life.

She prided herself on one thing above all: she never broke. "I was born with courage," she said. "I did not allow cruel people to find in me a person they could torture."

After the Gestapo were done with her, she was transported to Ravensbrück, the notorious women's concentration camp, where she narrowly escaped death multiple times. Upon arrival, prisoners were marched into what she later realized was a gas chamber -- but for unknown reasons, they were released instead of killed. She was lucky twice more during her time at Ravensbrück: first when she fell ill with meningitis but miraculously recovered, and then when she was selected for the gas chamber during roll call, but a Polish prisoner managed to sn**ch and hide the paper with her number before the SS noticed.

Eventually transferred to Buchenwald, Peel's final brush with death came in April 1945. As American troops approached, the N**is prepared to eliminate evidence of their crimes -- including the prisoners. Lined up against a wall with other inmates, Peel watched the firing squad take position. Then a telephone rang in the commandant's office. It was a message from the Americans: the firing squad had been seen entering the camp. If they wanted to live, they would spare the prisoners. The soldiers fled.

On April 11, 1945, tanks from the American Third Army rolled through Buchenwald. Andrée Peel was free.

After the war, she returned to Paris, where crowds welcomed her singing La Marseillaise. She fulfilled a promise made in captivity by making a pilgrimage to Sacré-Cœur to give thanks for her survival. She became one of the most decorated women to survive the war, receiving the Croix de Guerre, the Medal of the Resistance, the Liberation Cross, and -- at age 99 -- France's highest honor, the Légion d'honneur, presented by her own brother, a four-star general. She received the Medal of Freedom from President Eisenhower and a personal letter of thanks from Winston Churchill.

At her centenary in 2005, she received a letter from Queen Elizabeth II. Asked the secret to her long life, she replied: "I still feel like a woman of 50. I think that time has forgotten me."

When Peel died in 2010 at the age of 105, her coffin was draped with both the French and British flags -- a rare honor reflecting the two nations she had served. A public park in England now bears her name.

In her memoir, "Miracles Do Happen," she reflected on her choices: "You don't know what freedom is if you have never lost it.... The only fear we had was of being tortured and of speaking under torture. I rarely thought of my personal safety. I just acted and did what I believed was the right thing."

What the Gestapo called criminal, history has called heroic.

Andrée Peel faced torture, concentration camps, and a firing squad for fighting tyranny -- and still she resisted. Still she guided planes through the darkness and smuggled young pilots to safety. "

At that time we were all putting our lives in danger but we did it because we were fighting for freedom," she recalled. "It was a terrible time but looking back I am so proud of what I did and I'm glad to have helped defend the freedom of our future generations."

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For several excellent books about real-life women of the Resistance for adult readers, we recommend "The Nine" (https://www.amightygirl.com/the-nine), "All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days" (https://www.amightygirl.com/frequent-troubles-of-our-days), "The Women Who Liberated Italy from Fascism" (https://www.amightygirl.com/a-house-in-the-mountains), "A Woman of No Importance" (https://www.amightygirl.com/a-woman-of-no-importance), and "D-Day Girls" (https://www.amightygirl.com/d-day-girls)

For adults who love to read about heroic women of WWII, you can find more of the best fiction and non-fiction books in our blog post, "Telling Her Story: 40 Books for Adult Readers About Women Heroes of WWII," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=24501

For a fascinating book about both famous and little known women heroes of WWII for both teens and adults, ages 12 and up, we highly recommend "Women Heroes of World War II: 32 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage, Resistance, and Rescue," for teens and adults, at https://www.amightygirl.com/women-heroes-of-world-war-ii

For books for children and teens about girls and women involved in WWII resistance movements, we recommend "Jars of Hope" for ages 7 to 10 (https://www.amightygirl.com/jars-of-hope), "The Light of Days" for ages 10 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/light-days-young-readers), "Resistance" for ages 12 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/resistance), "In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer" for ages 14 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/in-my-hands)