Somehow I have not written much about The Girls of Summer 2012 list created by the fabulously talented Meg Medina and Gigi Amateau.

I love a good reading list and this is one of the best. I think the subtitle of the list does a beautiful job of describing just the types of books you will find as you read your way through one amazing selection after another. The Girls of Summer: Not Your School’s Summer Reading List.

Meg and Gigi describe their list this way:

…an annual list of our personal favorites that we think speak to girls uniquely and help them understand the journey. These are books – new and old, well-known and quiet. What mattered to us most was the celebration of a girl’s connection to the world around her. In the pages of these lovely books you’ll find middle class girls, girls with disabilities, girls of color, girls who might know God, good girls/bad girls. But always girls who stare into the eyes of what’s ahead and refuse to flinch.

Before summer began, I had read quite a few of the titles… Extra Yarn, Me..Jane, Marty McGuire, See You at Harry’s, Inside Out and Back Again, Breadcrumbs, a Northern Light and The Fault in our Stars.

This jump start gave me motivation to read my way through the rest.

Over the weekend, the girls and I read Happy Like Soccer, a picture book that shows just how strong a little girl can be. Caroline sat still for a picture book read aloud (something she hasn’t done in a bit) and Katherine asked for a second reading right away (something she doesn’t do often).

And then this week, I read The Queen of Water, a novel based on the true story of Virginia, an Ecuadorian indigenous girl who is taken from her family to work, essentially, as a slave.

Two very different books, appropriate for very different readers but the message is the same. With family, education and strength, there is not limit to what girls can do.