Ten Girls Who Changed the World - Paperback

Ordinary Girls. Extraordinary God. A Changed World.

What does it take to change the world?

Not a perfect childhood. Not a privileged beginning. Not a life free of suffering or doubt. The ten women in this book came from slums and watch shops, from hospital beds and broken families. One of them wasn’t even sure God existed. And yet — each one of them changed the world.

Ten Girls Who Changed the World is part of the internationally bestselling Lightkeepers series, and it tells ten of the most remarkable true stories in the history of Christian faith. These are not sanitised legends. They are real women, with real struggles, real doubts, and real faith — who said yes to God and let Him do the rest.

These stories will move you, challenge you, and leave you wondering what God might do with your life if you simply gave it to Him.

Meet the Ten Girls

Isobel Kuhn — Missionary in Asia Isobel didn’t begin her story with faith — she began it with doubt. She questioned whether God even existed. But when she encountered the living Christ, her life changed course entirely. She obeyed His call to travel to Asia, where she devoted herself to bringing the gospel to the Lisu people — a minority group in the mountains of southwest China. Her story is a powerful reminder that God can use even a doubting heart, once it is surrendered.

Mary Slessor — Missionary in Africa Mary Slessor grew up in a slum in Dundee, Scotland, with an alcoholic father and a childhood marked by poverty and hardship. She put herself through evening classes, found faith in Christ, and eventually became one of the first white women to venture deep into the interior of Africa. Working among the Efik people in what is now Nigeria, she confronted tribal customs, advocated for the vulnerable, and transformed entire communities — all because she refused to believe her background defined her future.

Corrie Ten Boom — The Hiding Place Corrie Ten Boom spent most of her life running a little watch shop in Haarlem, Holland, with her family. An ordinary life — until the Nazis began their systematic murder of the Jews. Corrie and her family built a hidden room behind a wardrobe in their shop and put their lives on the line to shelter Jewish families from the Holocaust. Arrested, imprisoned, and sent to a concentration camp, Corrie survived to carry a message of forgiveness and grace around the world. Her story is among the most powerful testimonies of faith under fire ever told.

Joni Eareckson — Artist and Advocate At seventeen, Joni Eareckson dived into shallow water and broke her neck. The accident left her paralysed from the shoulders down. The years that followed were years of devastating grief and struggle — but also of a faith forged in fire. Joni emerged as an artist, author, and advocate whose ministry to people with disabilities has touched millions around the world. She shows what it looks like when God redeems suffering for His glory.

Gladys Aylward — Missionary in China Gladys Aylward was told she was unsuitable for missionary work. She went anyway — travelling alone by train across Europe and Asia during wartime to reach the people of China she felt called to serve. She became a Chinese citizen, worked among the poor, and famously led over a hundred orphaned children to safety across the mountains during the Japanese invasion. Her life is proof that God’s call is not revoked by other people’s assessments.

Jackie Pullinger — Missionary in Hong Kong Jackie Pullinger arrived in Hong Kong’s infamous Walled City — one of the most densely populated and dangerous places on earth — with almost nothing but a conviction that God had sent her there. She began working among drug addicts, gang members, and the marginalised, and witnessed miraculous transformations that drew international attention. Her story is a challenge to every comfortable Christian: to follow God into the hard places.

Amy Carmichael — Missionary in India Amy Carmichael spent 55 years in India without ever returning home on furlough — a record of dedication almost unmatched in missionary history. She founded the Dohnavur Fellowship to rescue children from temple prostitution, and wrote dozens of books that continue to shape the inner lives of Christians today. Her poetry, her letters, and her life remain a touchstone for those who want to love Christ with reckless abandon.

Elizabeth Fry — Reformer and Prison Visitor Elizabeth Fry walked into Newgate Prison in London and found women and children living in conditions of unspeakable degradation. She kept going back. A Quaker and committed Christian, Fry became one of the most significant prison reform advocates in British history — visiting the sick, the imprisoned, and the homeless, and changing the way a nation thought about justice and mercy.

Catherine Booth — Co-Founder of the Salvation Army Catherine Booth co-founded one of the most remarkable Christian organisations in history. At a time when women were rarely permitted to preach, she stood up and preached — and helped build a movement that would feed the hungry, house the homeless, and bring the gospel to the poor across the world. Her conviction that the gospel demanded action, not just belief, gave the Salvation Army its soul.

Evelyn Brand — Missionary in India Evelyn Brand went to India with her husband as a young missionary and stayed long after he died — raising her children in the hills of South India and continuing to serve the communities around her for decades. Her son, Paul Brand, would go on to become a pioneering surgeon (featured in Ten Boys Who Used Their Talents), shaped profoundly by the faith he watched his mother live out day after day. Evelyn’s story is a tribute to the quiet, faithful lives that produce extraordinary fruit.

Key Themes Explored in This Book

Faith Born in Struggle Almost every woman in this book came to faith through difficulty — doubt, grief, hardship, imprisonment, disability. Their stories push back against any idea that faith is for the comfortable, or that struggle disqualifies a person from being used by God.

Courage to Go Where Others Won’t From the interior of Africa to the Walled City of Hong Kong to a wartime concentration camp, these women went where others turned back. Their courage was not the absence of fear — it was the presence of a God greater than their fear.

Justice and Mercy as Gospel Work Elizabeth Fry in the prisons, Catherine Booth among the poor, Evelyn Brand among the marginalised — these women understood that caring for the vulnerable was not separate from the gospel, but an expression of it.

Faithful in Obscurity Not every story here is famous. Some of these women spent years in quiet, unnoticed service. Their faithfulness in ordinary days is as inspiring as the dramatic moments — and a challenge to every reader to bloom where they are planted.

The World-Changing Power of One Yes Each of these women said yes to God at a critical moment — and the ripple effects of that yes are still being felt. Their stories ask the reader: what might God do with your yes?

What Readers Will Learn

• That God does not require a perfect beginning — only a willing heart
• How real women of faith integrated the gospel with acts of justice, mercy, and courage
• That doubt, hardship, disability, and poverty are not disqualifiers — they are often the very soil in which faith grows deepest
• The true stories of ten historically significant Christian women, from Corrie Ten Boom to Amy Carmichael
• That missionary work takes many forms: preaching, medicine, art, advocacy, prison visiting, and simply hiding Jewish families in your wardrobe
• How to think about their own calling, courage, and obedience to God
• That a changed world begins with a changed heart — and that God is in the business of both

Who Should Read This Book

This book is a wonderful gift and resource for:

• Girls aged 8–14 in search of genuine Christian heroines whose lives are rooted in Christ
• Parents and grandparents looking for faith-shaping stories to read with the young women in their lives
• Sunday school teachers and children’s ministry leaders seeking rich, true stories for class or group settings
• Christian school teachers and homeschool families building character and biblical values through biography
• Women of all ages who find the lives of Corrie Ten Boom, Amy Carmichael, and others a source of inspiration and challenge
• Church libraries seeking quality Christian biography for children and adults

About the Author

Irene Howat is an award-winning Scottish author and biographer who has written widely for both children and adults on the lives of Christians throughout history. She is one of the principal authors of the internationally bestselling Lightkeepers series, published by Christian Focus Publications. Her writing is warmly accessible, historically grounded, and deeply respectful of the extraordinary women and men whose lives she brings to the page. Her books have introduced hundreds of thousands of children worldwide to the Christian faith through biography.

Series Information: Lightkeepers

Ten Girls Who Changed the World is part of the internationally bestselling Lightkeepers series, published by Christian Focus Publications. The series has sold internationally and is one of the most widely used collections of Christian biography for children in homes, churches, and schools around the world.

Other titles in the Lightkeepers girls’ series include:

• Ten Girls Who Used Their Talents
• Ten Girls Who Made a Difference
• Ten Girls Who Made History
• Ten Girls Who Didn’t Give In

Companion boys’ series titles include:

• Ten Boys Who Changed the World
• Ten Boys Who Used Their Talents
• Ten Boys Who Made a Difference

The boys’ and girls’ editions on matching themes make excellent paired gifts or church library sets. Each volume stands alone and can be read in any order.