Margie Kelly Breaks the Dress Code by Bridget Farr

At a conference supporting migrant farmworkers, I listened to Dolores Huerta rightfully claim “Sí Se Puede” as her own and wondered why there wasn’t a Dolores Huerta Street parallel to every Cesar Chavez Avenue. I watched girls in my classes be underestimated and talked over. Like Margie Kelly in Margie Kelly Breaks the Dress Code, I too was ignored by the boys on my middle school quiz bowl team ( Come on! It’s Treaty of Versailles!). Their ears had been plugged for centuries and they weren’t about to hear me now.

Soon though, I started to see that while girl power was the message, not everyone was listening. And my mom was my biggest supporter, reading all of my notebook stories and covering my first book about mermaids in leftover seashell wallpaper. Hessen, my third grade teacher, encouraged me to move from the sidelines of the basketball court to state champion in the free throw shooting competition. Having now taught myself, I’m awed at the extra hours she put in to make sure I got what I needed. Schrader, made an entire curriculum just for me. After moving to a new town too late to test into the advanced reading program, my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Girl power shirts aside, I also had women in my life who reminded me my voice was important. Apparently, I didn’t realize that the voice I should want people to listen to was my own. Inspired and hopeful that my own diary would be worthy of publication, I began referring to my “dearest grandfather” and “darling mummy,” certain a British accent would lend me the necessary clout. My favorite book series, Dear America, featured girls during important moments of history their lives personalizing events normally told from the perspectives of old white men. Girls dominate.” Girl power ruled the day just as we girls planned to dominate our own lives. In fifth grade, my favorite shirt read, “Jack and Jill ran up the hill.

Margie Kelly Breaks the Dress Code by Bridget Farr