Welcome!  I’m Shane Castillo Manning, author of the Pioneer Girl book series.  (I’m a girl, too.)  Thanks for joining us at BeAPioneerGirl.com.

The idea for the Pioneer Girls project started in June 2006, when I became a mother for the first time.  My husband and I named our daughter for two great women we wanted her to come to know and respect — her third great-grandmother, Emma Higbee, who crossed the Great Plains with a Mormon pioneer wagon train, and Jane Manning James, a black pioneer of great faith from the early days of our church.

In 2013, I began writing a book about the life of Emma Higbee to share with my daughter.  In researching that book I recognized that many brave young girls throughout the world have been pioneers in their own countries or communities, and I wanted to share those stories as well.

I hope you’ll take a moment to look for pioneers around you and share their stories, whether they’re girls and women from your own family history or pioneers in a broader sense.  I hope that you’ll share your stories with me when you find them!  Most of all, I hope the stories in this blog will inspire young people everywhere to stand up for what they believe in.

If you have a story to share or a pioneer you’d like to see profiled here, please use the form below to submit it for review.