OH NO THEY DIDN'T! REMARKABLE WOMEN: Fascinating Facts You Never Knew About Amazing Women!
ERIC HUANG (illus. Sam Caldwell)
words & pictures/Quarto Group (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$12.99 trade paper, available now
Rating: 4.5* of five
The Publisher Says: In this myth-busting guide to remarkable women past and present, everything you think you know will be proven wrong!
Remarkable women have been at the forefront of history. They’ve changed the world and are leading the way to our future. But how much do you really know about the remarkable women who’ve shaped our world? We all know that. . .
Misconceptions about women from the past and present are everywhere, but none of them are true! In Oh No They Didn't: Remarkable Women myths are busted about over 50 remarkable women from politicians to legends, performers, activists, scientists, mathematicians, creatives, and more.
In this fresh and funny guide learn about inspiring women from all over the world as well as their influence on history and popular culture. Stylishly designed and humorously illustrated by Sam Caldwell, Oh No They Didn't: Remarkable Women makes learning fun with unexpected facts and a playful, upbeat approach to non-fiction.
Oh No They Didn't: Remarkable Women is the perfect inspiring guide for ALL young people to learn about the influential women who may have been left out of traditional history books and deserve to be celebrated.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: My mother was my introduction to the waste of potential, and the weight of prejudice, that has plagued women since patriarchy took over the globe. Her (probably sexually, certainly emotionally) abusive father convinced her she was unable to understand math, science, or any other "male" stuff. He forbade her to accept a scholarship to study journalism, another to study acting, because she should get a husband and have babies.
Sadly for her she obeyed, hated her life, and "raised" children whom she neglected and abused...and she wasn't alone. May books like this one teach girls especially, and the boys they'll make lives with too (on current trends compulsory heterosexuality is on the way back, which this book quietly resists), that biology ≠ destiny.
Where we're going; with whom we're going; and even here, note that Motherhood Comes First.
The statement of purpose is quite lively, colorful, and well-judged, IMO.
Okay, they're the universal mother archetypes; but really...?
More to my taste, these are the women engaged in the USE of power...a message we can not afford to skimp on giving to the young.
Lest those darker impulses feel shamed, here are the role models for being angry, and still getting shit done.
That's what the good people of the Quarto Group allow me to share with you in the way of illustrations. I think this subject, empowering girls and normalizing them having and using power, is one we are woefully poor at passing on...it's telling that, when adding this book to my database of books read, not one library of the dozen or so I searched had this book in its collection.
It's up to us, grands and aunts and mothers. We're (surprise, surprise, surprise! in your best Gomer Pyle mental voice) gettin' no help or support for this message from The PTB. This book is part of the Oh No They Didn't! series, and the author penned the mythbusting entry in this series on US Presidents, as well as Pride: A Seek-and-Find Celebration: Adventure Through the History of the Queer Community, aimed at the same age group. You'll clutch your pearls, I'm sure, when I tell you these aren't in my searched library databases, either.
Resist being shoved back into being subservient to a straight white man, and model it for all the youth.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.