Latest Heroines Podcast Episodes
Jacob Have I Loved
These Books Made Me - April 25, 2024 14:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsEver felt overshadowed by a sibling or struggled to find your own identity? Katherine Paterson's "Jacob Have I Loved" brings these raw emotions to the surface, and we're peeling back the layers. Join us as we navigate Sarah Louise's turbulent journey, from her envy-ridden youth on the Chesapeake...
Bonus Episode: a Peer Health Educator discusses Forever
These Books Made Me - April 04, 2024 17:00 - 33 minutes ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsForever was a real headscratcher for us. We *think* Judy Blume was trying to disseminate information about teen sexual health in an easily digestible way but we wanted to check in with an expert. In this frank conversation, we untangle the complex dynamics of the book's central relationship and ...
Forever
These Books Made Me - March 21, 2024 04:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsOh Judy Blume, you are officially our most frequently covered author on TBMM and oh my, have you ever given us some wild rides. We weren't sure what to expect when we revisited Forever, one of the most frequently challenged books of all time, but it wasn't Ralph. The first rule of the Judy Blume...
The Bluest Eye
These Books Made Me - February 22, 2024 13:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsHow many times have you read The Bluest Eye by the legendary Toni Morrison, and why is it never enough times? In this episode, we all revisit this literary classic and realize there are several interpretations and layers we missed in previous readings. Like, did you ever consider that Pecola is ...
Bonus Episode: Interview with an archer
These Books Made Me - February 16, 2024 02:00 - 46 minutes ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsWith a May 8th birthday, Katniss Everdeen is a Taurus not a Sagittarius (Latin for 'archer') but we challenge you to name a more iconic wielder of bow and arrows in pop culture. It seemed therefore essential that we seek out an expert to talk to us about the venerable art of archery. We connecte...
The Hunger Games
These Books Made Me - January 18, 2024 13:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsMuch like Katniss Everdeen, in this episode we are faced with some very tough choices. Four librarians enter the podcasting studio, only one will leave! Actually no librarian podcasters had to fight to the death during the making of this episode, though we did learn that Darlene would simply opt...
Hispanic Heritage Month: How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents Rerelease
These Books Made Me - October 15, 2023 14:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsIn honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we're revisiting some of our favorite episodes! To close out HHM, here's How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez. If you missed this episode the first time around, it's back with some bonus recommendations for readalikes. This episode we di...
Hispanic Heritage Month: The House on Mango Street Rerelease
These Books Made Me - September 28, 2023 21:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsIn honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we're revisiting some of our favorite episodes! First up is The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. If you missed this episode the first time around, it's back with some bonus recommendations for readalikes. In this episode, we're spending time with E...
Blubber
These Books Made Me - April 06, 2023 12:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsWe had such a good experience with Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. that we decided to go back to the Judy Blume well as a palate cleanser of sorts post-Sisterhood. Well, you know how it's really gross when you drink orange juice when you were expecting milk? That was sort of how using Blu...
Bonus Episode: Dr. Mike Duncan discusses the science in A Wrinkle in Time
These Books Made Me - March 30, 2023 16:00 - 23 minutes ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsWe couldn't decide what genre A Wrinkle in Time was but we definitely considered science fiction. To further explore our genre-confusion, we decided to talk to an expert about the actual math and science in A Wrinkle in Time. Is it fuzzy math? Is it fantasy? Is breathing flowers in an oxygen sta...
A Wrinkle in Time
These Books Made Me - March 23, 2023 13:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsWe're no strangers to books with religious overtones or stories meant to impart a moral lesson, but this episode's journey to Camazotz with Madeleine L'Engle's classic work A Wrinkle in Time is definitely the most overtly religious book we've tackled. Jesus, Charles Wallace... or Jesus= Charles...
The Baby-Sitters Club: Kristy
These Books Made Me - March 09, 2023 12:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsThis is now officially an Ann M. Martin stan podcast. Ok, maybe not since our loyalties are divided between the many great authors we've revisited, but we are firmly team Ann. This episode we embark on our long-awaited journey into The Baby-Sitters Club. We are beginning at the only possible sta...
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
These Books Made Me - February 23, 2023 13:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsThese Books Made Me... kind of upset to be honest. This week we're tackling local-at-one-point author Ann Brashares and her homage to pretty much everything that was wrong about the late 90s, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. This episode has everything: a book with casual racism in the sec...
Anne of Green Gables Part 2
These Books Made Me - February 02, 2023 13:00 - 43 minutes ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsWe're back with part 2 of Anne of Green Gables, because we, like Anne, can talk the hind leg off a mule. Anne's a capital R Romantic and obsessed with beauty. She sees it everywhere from the Lake of Shining Waters to the fashion of the day. Speaking of the fashion a la mode, we delve a little de...
Anne of Green Gables Pt. 1
These Books Made Me - January 19, 2023 12:00 - 57 minutes ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsThis podcast crew has so much in common with the heroine of Lucy Maud Montgomery's classic, Anne of Green Gables. We too prattle on incessantly, have ill-advised adventures in hair dyeing, and we're big in Japan... one might say we're kindred spirits. In this episode we take a turn down the Whit...
Bonus Episode: Professor Ingrid Satelmajer, University of Maryland
These Books Made Me - January 12, 2023 14:00 - 23 minutes ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsWe discussed at length about Jane Austen's most famous novel, "Pride & Prejudice" (in 2 parts!). But in case you still had a taste for more Jane Austen content, we've included an expert interview with Ingrid Satelmajer, a professor at the University of Maryland, who has taught a class called tit...
Pride & Prejudice: Part 2
These Books Made Me - January 05, 2023 14:00 - 50 minutes ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsWe're back with part the second of our journey to Netherfield and Pemberley with the Bennet family. We delve into Lizzie as a character, whether Mr. Darcy really was in want of a wife, and who really got the short end of the stick in the Lydia and Wickham union. We discuss the long reach of Aust...
Pride & Prejudice: Part 1
These Books Made Me - December 15, 2022 14:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsThis episode we are taking a leisurely stroll through the gentle hills of Hertfordshire and the genteel romances of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. We're talking classics, love-hate relationships, £5,000 bachelors, loveless marriages, Mr. Bennet's zingers, and the cost of living index in Reg...
Nancy Drew: The Secret of the Old Clock
These Books Made Me - December 01, 2022 19:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsThis episode finds us in the ambiguously located town of River Heights with teen sleuth, Nancy Drew. The Nancy series has mega intergenerational nostalgia vibes for a lot of us —that row of yellow spines on a shelf transports many of us straight back to childhood. But revisiting our Nancy-love b...
Heaven
These Books Made Me - November 17, 2022 13:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsIf the foundation is a lie, is anything real? This episode we look at identity, trust, and family as we dive into Angela Johnson's award winning book, Heaven. Marley's world is turned upside down when she learns that nothing is what it seems and her (spoiler alert) uncle is really her dad and th...
Ella Enchanted
These Books Made Me - November 03, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsWe are traipsing through the land of Kyria this week on our unnecessarily teeny tiny feet as we revisit Gail Carson Levine's Newbery Honor book Ella Enchanted. Poor Ella of Frell has been cursed with the "gift" of obedience in this reimagining of the Cinderella story. We try to decipher the mora...
Coraline
These Books Made Me - October 19, 2022 23:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsNeil Gaiman gave us a children's fantasy horror book for the ages with Coraline, which follows its titular character through a dark adventure like no other complete with performing mice, human-like creatures with buttons for eyes, a talking cat and a humanoid arachnid soul-stealing witch. In t...
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
These Books Made Me - October 06, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsWe are back for season 3 with a coming of age story told in reverse. This episode we dive into Julia Alvarez's How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, the 1991 reverse chronology story of four sisters who flee to the United States from the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic. As we look t...
The Westing Game
These Books Made Me - June 30, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsThe Westing Game gave young readers a layered and complex mystery to solve and gave Ellen Raskin a Newbery medal. In this episode we discuss our heroine, Turtle Wexler, and her 15 fellow players in the Westing Game, and appreciate how richly drawn the characters are (except for Theo) in a book t...
Persepolis
These Books Made Me - June 16, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsMarjane Satrapi's groundbreaking graphic memoir Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood chronicles the life of a young girl growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In this episode we discuss the experience of reading graphic novels, the impact of Satrapi's illustration style, and the impo...
The Skin I'm In
These Books Made Me - June 02, 2022 11:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsThis episode finds us in the brutal halls of middle school with Maleeka Madison, a 12 year old girl struggling with self-esteem, peer pressure, and grief in Sharon Flake's The Skin I'm In. Flake's almost 25 year old award winning book takes a hard look at colorism, the burden of low expectations...
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
These Books Made Me - May 19, 2022 11:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsE.L. Konigsburg's From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler has endured on library shelves as many older Newbery books often do. In this episode we talk about whether the 1967 mystery cum adventure story still earns that spot on the shelf. We discuss Claudia Kincaid as a role model an...
Alice in April
These Books Made Me - May 05, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsIn this episode we are diving into one of the books in the comprehensive Alice series (25 books!) by children's literature paragon Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. Alice in April covers one very dramatic month in the life of Alice McKinley. Journey with us and Alice through the awkwardness of middle sch...
Ramona
These Books Made Me - April 21, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsBeverly Cleary's many books for young readers have endured the decades with her boisterous heroine Ramona Quimby remaining a perennial favorite for both parents and children. In this episode we examine the original bookends of the Ramona books, beginning with Beezus and Ramona and ending with Ra...
Bonus Episode: Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy talk Rabies
These Books Made Me - April 14, 2022 12:00 - 40 minutes ★★★★★ - 13 ratingsMany of us vividly remembered Their Eyes Were Watching God as the book where a person gets rabies and is shot. Tea Cake's demise left us with so many questions so Hannah consulted experts Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy, the authors of Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus....
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