This is a list of books about girls who have particular ambitions early in life. They might be future career goals or more personal goals or a combination of the two. Sometimes, the girls’ goals are central to the plot, and sometimes they’re just part of the girls’ characters. In some cases, the girls need to overcome physical disabilities or desperate circumstances to realize their ambitions. Sometimes, the girls change their minds about their ambitions or discover new ones during the course of the story. If you’re looking for books that encourage girls to think of the future and to pursue goals, you may enjoy these!
To keep this section organized, I have the books sorted by types of ambitions. I have special sections for historical fiction and fantasy books at the end.
Academic Ambitions
These book are about more than just girls wanting to do well in school. These girls crave academic careers and understanding of some of the deeper things of life.
The Court of the Stone Children (1973)
A lonely girl who loves museums encounters a ghost who needs her help to learn the truth about the past. Nina, the heroine of the story, wants to be a curator when she grows up. Her adventures in the story are directly related to her ambitions. Her experiences with the ghost girl and her investigations into the past help her and one of the professionals working for the museum to see the past in human terms and historical figures as living people, bringing a touch of humanity to their academic lives.
The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline
Caroline knows that she wants to be a paleontologist when she grows up. (Her devotion to the natural sciences has already given her a reputation at the museum and the offer of a job as soon as she’s old enough to take it.) However, she’s fascinated by her friend Stacy’s ambition to be an investigative reporter, and the two girls begin investigating a mysterious man who has moved into Caroline’s apartment building.
A brother and sister move to Maine with their father, where he is put in charge of a collection of Egyptian artifacts at a small college. They are soon confronted with a mystery concerning the mummy in the collection.
There are feminist themes in this book, and the girl in the story has conflicted feelings about her mother, who has left the family to pursue her career ambitions. Although the girl learned her sense of feminism from her mother, she has come to realize that she and her mother have different ideas of what they want to accomplish in life: the mother sees money and prestigious jobs as the goal of feminism so that women can be seen as holding as much status as men, but the girl craves the academic, intellectual life that her father prefers to live and mainly wants to women to be appreciated for their intellect. Their goals aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, but the differences in goals create family conflict, and the girl feels betrayed by her mother’s decision to separate from her family for the sake of her career. Much of the conflict in the story overall concerns people with differing ambitions and what people are willing to do or sacrifice to realize their goals. There is a lot of room for group discussion with this story and speculation about what the characters will do after the book ends.
Artistic Ambitions
These characters want to be artists of different types.
Patty Paints a Picture (1946)
Patty wants to paint a picture of her kitten to hang in her room. She has trouble creating a painting that truly satisfies her, but through her efforts, she comes to learn more about art. The fun part of the book is when Patty takes her kitten to her art class, and she studies all of the different ways her friends in class draw the kitten, seeing how everyone looks at the kitten differently and uses different art styles, some drawn better than others because all the artists are children. The children’s pictures look like pictures by real children. The book explains how Patty learns new art techniques to make her painting look more realistic. By Laura Bannon.
This is a vintage picture book. I haven’t found a physical copy of this book yet, but you can read it online through the HathiTrust Digital Library.
Mystery Aboard the Ocean Princess
Jill and her cousin are on a cruise to Europe, and they try to prevent the theft of a valuable painting being transported on their ship. Jill loves art, and her ambition in life is to be an art teacher, like her father.
A year ago, sixteen-year-old Angie was blinded in a car accident. It was shocking and devastating for her, especially since she was planning to become an artist. She loved painting, and she feels like all of her dreams have died since she became blind. Her parents send her to a special camp to learn skills that she will need to cope with her new disability, but things at camp are not what they seem. Someone is out to sabotage the camp, and Angie discovers that, in spite of her blindness, she has what it takes to help set things right and realize her life’s ambitions.
Dash loves art and knows that she will be an artist one day. When her art teacher tells her that she should take the summer off drawing and just observe people and her surroundings, she finds it hard. Then, she and her brother begin investigating a strange man they saw on the beach and find themselves enmeshed in an art mystery and, along the way, help their older sister, who has been worried about not seeming to have a particular talent of her own, discover her life’s ambition to become a police detective.
Because Amy shares her love of art and wants to be an artist herself someday, Amy’s aunt invites her on a trip to Taboga Island, off the coast of Panama for the summer. There, they uncover a mystery involving a special painting with a mysterious origin.
Secret of the Samurai Sword (1958)
Celia and her brother travel to Japan with their grandmother following WWII and encounter a ghostly who haunts the house where they are staying. Celia loves art, and she finds a new mentor in Japan. By Phyllis A. Whitney.
Business Ambitions
Some girls know that they want to go into business or start businesses of their own or begin working their way up in jobs when they’re young.
As the heirs to an eccentric millionaire compete in a bizarre game to get his fortune, they learn some unexpected things about themselves and change their lives for the better. Young “Turtle” Wexler, often in the shadow of her pretty older sister, develops her talents as a businesswoman and realizes that she has the wit to beat the millionaire at his own game. Meanwhile, her older sister, Angela, comes to realize that she’s more than just a pretty face and finds the confidence to pursue her own life goals.
Series
Olivia Sharp, Agent for Secrets
Olivia Sharp uses her wits and her family’s money to open a business and help her friends to solve their secret problems. In a way, she’s kind of like a combination of detective and psychologist in the stories.
A group of neighborhood friends living in St. Louis start their own newspaper, using a treehouse as their headquarters. 1989-1991.
Law Enforcement Ambitions
Series
About a girl who wants to be a detective and her two friends. They investigate spooky mysteries in a small town in Pennsylvania. By Drew Stevenson.
An African American girl in Northern California solves mysteries with her friends. By Patricia Elmore. 1980-1992.
Literary Ambitions
Daddy-Long-Legs (1912)
A wealthy benefactor provides money to a young orphan girl, Jerusha “Judy” Abbott, so that she can go to college. He asks that she write to him about her college experiences and progress in class but insists upon remaining anonymous. Judy nicknames him “Daddy-Long-Legs” in her letters because she has only had one brief glimpse of him and only knows that he is very tall with long legs. Through the course of the book and her letters, she eventually discovers his true identity. This is a classic piece of children’s literature, and Judy’s ambition is to be a writer. By the time the book ends, she has her work published. By Jean Webster.
Benita wants to be a writer and is thrilled when she finds out that her father is taking her and her brother to visit a distant relative in South Africa. It’s an exciting adventure, but it seems like it’s going to be ruined when her father also brings his editor’s son with them. He and Benita do not get along at all because they have opposite views on almost everything. When strange things start happening, the two of them have to learn to appreciate each other’s skills and good sides and allow each other to be themselves. Benita’s experiences give her insight into different personality types and how, even in her writing, she has to let certain types of characters be the types of characters they have to be.
The Vanishing Scarecrow (1971)
When Joan and her mother inherit an amusement park from her late uncle, they must learn who is dressing up as a scarecrow and trying to sabotage it. By Phyllis Whitney.
Series
When an aging, unmarried brother and sister decide that they could use some extra help on their farm, they the decide to take in an orphan boy who can help with the farm chores. However, by mistake, the orphanage sends them a red-haired young girl instead, changing their lives and others in the community with her liveliness and imagination. These books are classics in children’s literature. Through the series, Anne goes from being a girl who loves books and stories to being a teacher and writer. 1908-1939.
Performing Arts Ambitions
These are girls who want to be actors, dancers, musicians, or other performers.
Amazing Grace (1991)
Grace wants the role of Peter Pan in her school play, but some of the other kids say that she can’t do it, both because she’s a girl and because she’s black. Can she prove them wrong? Picture book.
The Silver Slippers (1989)
A little girl loves ballet but feels clumsy in class. Her mother gives her a special necklace with a ballet slippers charm to raise her self-confidence. Besides the necklace giving the girl confidence, she also realizes that she has to make extra efforts and some sacrifice to meet her goals, like practicing more often instead of doing things with her friends. A picture book that came with ballet slippers charm, part of a series.
Series
Elizabeth, often called Libby, is a foster child taken in by the Johnson family. Libby slowly gets adjusted to life in their family and on their farm, finds God, and solves mysteries. Her ambition is to become a concert pianist. By Hilda Stahl.
During the early 1900s, a famous tightrope walker, Bellini, loses his nerve when a fellow tightrope walker makes a mistake and falls to his death. Living in a French boarding house, Bellini struggles with his fear, believing that he will never again be able to walk a tightrope. Unexpectedly, he becomes friends with Mirette, the young daughter of his landlady. Mirette is fascinated at the idea of walking a tightrope and decides that she wants to learn how. After seeing Mirette experimenting on her own, Bellini starts to teach her what he knows. Mirette helps him to regain his courage, and the two become a team. Picture book series.
Shoes Series
A very loose series about children who find their life’s ambitions and begin making their way in the world. Some characters recur but are not in every book. The best-known book in the series is the first one, Ballet Shoes, which has been made into a movie. By Noel Streatfeild. 1936-1962.
Self-Discovery and Self-Improvement
Some girls don’t know right away what they want to do with their lives or have more abstract ambitions. In these stories, the girls discover the wider possibilities of the world and some important things about their own characters that help them develop confidence and move forward in their lives.
Miss Rumphius lives a somewhat unconventional life. From an early age, she has two main life goals: to travel the world and to bring beauty to it. Her career ambitions are secondary to these goals. After her career as a librarian, she travels around the world, seeing all the things she had always wanted to see. When she returns home, she sets about making the world more beautiful in an usual way. A picture book.
When her teacher mysteriously disappears, Eliza feels like she is the only one who cares and investigates with the help of some friends. At first, Eliza is misunderstood by her parents and others because she is an introvert and a naturally quiet, serious person. She admires her teacher because she is the same way, and she learns that, even though she is quiet, she is strong and determined enough to do what’s necessary to save her teacher, and others come to understand and respect Eliza’s quiet strength. By Mary Frances Shura.
Susan’s Magic (1973)
A purchase at a rummage sale starts a series of events that lead Susan to be involved with a stray cat and the owner of an antiques store who needs help. Susan’s involvement helps make things better for everyone, although Susan has to make some sacrifices in the process. In return, she makes new friends, earns their respect, develops a new sense of identity, and makes peace with her parents’ divorce. Susan’s sense of “magic” has to do with getting what she wants in life, but that changes during the course of the book, and her sense of “magic” becomes more about dealing with the circumstances of life and helping people around her so that things work out in the best way for everyone. By Nan Agle.
The Twenty-Four Hour Lipstick Mystery
Cassie, who is at an awkward stage in her life and trying to build more confidence in herself, gets an after-school job helping a woman move into an old house nearby to earn money for lessons at a beauty and charm school. However, there are strange things happening in the house, and Cassie comes to question people’s motives and some of the things that she thought were important. Along the way, she realizes that appearances don’t matter as much as she had previously thought and that she has developed more confidence by her achievements at her first job, solving a bizarre mystery, and realizing that she has other interests and skills that she wants to develop. This book is partly about acquiring and changing ambitions and working toward new goals.
Historical Fiction
Girls throughout history have had ambitions for their lives and decisions to make about their futures. Many of their ambitions are similar to ones listed above, but I decided to separate this section out because the time periods are important to the stories and make a difference to the girls’ ambitions.
Kathleen: The Celtic Knot (2003)
When the headmistress of the Catholic school Kathleen attends recommends that she takes lessons in traditional Irish dancing, Kathleen discovers a talent that she never knew she had and a new vision of her future. Ireland, 1937. By Siobhan Parkinson. Part of the Girls of Many Lands series.
Her father’s absence and her mother’s illness force young Lyddie to seek her fortune as a factory worker during the 1840s. By Katherine Paterson.
The Puppeteer’s Apprentice (2003)
A young girl in Medieval England discovers her destiny as a puppeteer. By D. Anne Love.
The Secret School (2001)
The year is 1925, and what 14-year-old Ida Bidson wants most is to graduate from her community’s small, one-room schoolhouse so that she can go to high school in a nearby city. When the local school board closes the school rather than hire a new teacher, Ida and the other students take their education into their own hands. By Avi.
Under Copp’s Hill (2000)
Boston, Massachusetts, 1908. Innie Moretti is an orphan who lives with relatives. She joins a library club with some of the other girls, but strange things start happening there: things move around or just disappear. The girls wonder if the building could be haunted, but then someone accuses Innie of being a thief! As part of the story, both Innie Moretti and her older cousin make some decisions about their future lives and goals. By Katherine Ayres. Part of the American Girl History Mysteries series.
A humorous look at small town life shortly after the Great Depression, when people were still struggling. Mary Alice spends a year living with her grandmother in the country, participating in her eccentric schemes, and learns a few things about her grandmother and herself and ends up developing a talent for writing that leads to a career in journalism. The sequel to A Long Way from Chicago.
Series
Adelaide “Addie” Mills tells stories about her experiences growing up with a widowed father in a small town in Nebraska in the 1940s. All of the books involve Addie, as an adult, telling stories about her youth, and they all center around holidays. By Gail Rock.
Cherry Ames
A young nurse solves mysteries as she completes her training, serves during World War II, and moves to different jobs. “Cherry” is a nickname for Charity. This is a vintage series. 1943-1968.
A Jewish family flees Germany to escape World War II and struggles to establish themselves in America. The stories cover the changes in their lives and how the daughters of the family deal with growing up in a new country. In the last two books of the series, the girls begin growing up and making decisions about their future lives and careers. By Sonia Levitin.
Fantasy
When you think “ambition,” you might think of real world ambitions first, but fantasy characters have ambitions and life goals, too. Although real girls can’t be witches in the fantasy sense, they might find inspiration in these girls’ determination to overcome obstacles and fears in order to achieve their goals.
Young Blanche has been allowed to join a prestigious group of adult witches because of her unusual blue nose, which she can make glow at will. Although she loves taking part in this group’s spectacular flight formations, her habit of being late to everything may cause her to be sent back to the group of young witches she was in before. Can Blanche manage to be on time for the special Halloween flight?
Elynne Danneby is afraid of dragons, which is a shame because her family makes its living by dragon charming. Only certain people have the ability to charm dragons. Elynne possesses that talent, but she has been unable to use it since she made a mistake while trying to charm dragons when she was a small child and was almost attacked by the dragons she was trying to charm. It is only when she must save a dragon egg from thieves that she finds a way to overcome her fear and learn to use her talents in a new way.
Jestress's Forgotten Books and Stories 