• Age: 9 to 13
• Grade: 4 to 8
• Reading age: 9 to 12

A thirst for adventure, a deep desire to push themselves beyond their comfort zones, and an innate curiosity about the world and its peoples drive the biographies of the ten women explorers profiled here. As explorers they bring skills in cartography, geography, history, anthropology, botany, photography, linguistics and writing to their travels. Their stories begin with Sacagawea, a Native guide in the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1805, and end in the present, with Mattie McNair and Denise Martin, the Canadian leaders of Arctic and Antarctic expeditions. These are stories of women who dared to push beyond the safety of their own communities in order to live their dreams.

Frances Rooney is a writer, editor, and spiritual director who lives in Toronto. Her books include Working Light: The Wandering Life of Photographer Edith S. Watson (published in Canada, the U.S. and Britain) and Our Lives (finalist for the Lambda Award). Frances has written two books for the Women’s Hall of Fame Series – her first was Extraordinary Women Explorers.

Frances Rooney's profile page

Extraordinary Women Explorers (Women’s Hall of Fame)