Bedtime Stories for Heroes
For the last few months my daughter and I have a bedtime routine. Teeth are brushed, pajamas on, stuffy selected, and then finally we are ready to get cozy and continue reading Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Tales of Extraordinary Women. The book includes gorgeously creative illustrations of 100 women and a one page story typically beginning with “Once upon a time…”. Pages include dates of each rebels life, country of origin, and one carefully selected quote. The pages are magical, every turn we have no idea who we will meet next, each story has us hooked!
What’s most magical about this routine isn’t the story, it is the opportunity that each story invites my daughter and I to connect, to be curious together, to compare a hero’s life to our own. As we read we always manage to interrupt ourselves and start talking about what we would do if we were her or at times my daughter is outraged “That isn’t right! Why would people think that!” Sometimes we dive deep into the injustice of history, sometimes we talk about our lives and how we are so lucky, sometimes we talk about how we want to change the world and all the ways the world still needs to grow.
Just the other day we read about Maya Angelou and my daughter turned to me and said “Mom, these girls are a lot like us!” I asked her how and she said “We are amazing and have challenges too, it’s not easy but we face the hard stuff just like the girls in here.” I asked her, “Do you think one day your story will be in this book?” She said, “Yes! But I’m not sure about the details yet.” My heart smiled because to my daughter she knew she would be in this book, she didn’t hesitate. My daughter, your daughter, your son are all young heroes that will change the world but before they can think how they will change the world they must believe they can. The stories of real people changing the world opens children to their own dream, their own journey.
I believe believing you are a hero starts with the simplest bedtime story. Seeing yourself in the story of a real hero sparks ideas for your own journey. At Acton, we believe everyone is a hero and the way we share this core philosophy is through hero’s journey language and stories. A hero doesn’t need superpowers to be great. A hero is an ordinary person that journeyed to become extraordinary. A hero is someone who stands for something, who says something, who acts. Maya Angelou, Ada Lovelace, Frida Kahlo, Malala Yousafzai, Julia Child, Jane Goodall, and one day your child’s name will join them.
For those of you who have rebel boys instead of girls I highly recommend Stories for Boys Who Dare to be Different: true tales of amazing boys who changed the world without killing dragons by Ben Brooks and the abundant hero series Little People, Big Dreams. Feel free to take a peek at these literary wonders in our Acton library in the hero section.
Good night rebel parents, good night heroes!