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By Maya Dusenbery • @mayadusenbery • 9 years ago

7-year-old girl’s comic book about her magical afro puffs wins crowdfunding contest

The Adventures of Moxie Girl

Congrats to Natalie McGriff, the seven-year-old author of the comic book The Adventures of Moxie Girl!

Inspired (in part) by her own life, the book is about a Black girl who hates her hair until some magical shampoo gives her Afro puffs superpowers that help her save the Jacksonville Public Libraries from hungry monsters. Her mom Angie explained, “I decided to help Natalie write this book because she was having self-esteem issues regarding her hair and she hated to read. She now realizes how powerful and awesome her hair is and that in order for her to write a cool book, she needs to read more books and learn different words.”

The book won over $16K at the One Spark crowdfunding festival. Awesome.

(h/t The Root)

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

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