The design and UX isn't done, Rob and Abbie, okkurrrr! 😌
niniane's review against another edition
5.0
The audiobook is calming and has uplifting stories.
I liked hearing about Mary Bowser and Sojourner Truth.
I liked hearing about Mary Bowser and Sojourner Truth.
ela_lee_'s review against another edition
5.0
What an adorable and educational little book! I particularly loved the beginning half which addressed many "forgotten" historical figures of our past. I didn't get to see all of the illustrations since I read this on audiobook, but the few I saw were also adorable. These women are MUCH more interesting and fun to learn about than all the old, boring, white men filling our textbooks :')
deservingporcupine's review against another edition
3.0
A lot of great information that I can’t figure out the audience for. We can’t finish this book before it goes back to the library. My biggest issue is that the pictures just dont do the book justice. It’s a little high level for younger kids, but the illustrations seem targeted to the elementary set. Not a bad book, but I think we’ll try it again when the kids are older.
akingston5's review against another edition
I normally don't review children's books/check them off as read on Goodreads, but y'all, this sweet little book is amazing and strong and bold and I loved it so much. I didn't know about half of the women in this book and am frantically looking them up to learn more! I love the short biographies and beautiful illustrations- pick this up and read it!
erin_oriordan_is_reading_again's review against another edition
5.0
Vashti Harrison is a filmmaker as well as a visual artist, which explains why she did such an excellent job of intuiting which events in each woman's life to highlight to make each story compelling. Every one of the 40 mini-biographies in the beautiful, inspiration book could be made into a film. (Some of them have been, 'Hidden Figures' being one recent example.) Harrison's drawings emphasis the contributions to society of these women, but also their personal strength, dignity, and beauty. This book for middle grade readers would make a wonderful addition to any school library, classroom, or children's bookshelf.
lorien13's review against another edition
5.0
This book is a powerful, fun, and wonderful book. It's just like it says in the title, it is a book about bold women who bettered the world around them by standing up for what was right, and demanding a chance, and a change.
There are forty women who get two pages, one of an amazing artwork, and one with a short biography explaining their background and how they were "bold leaders". Each woman deserves so much more. What's sad is that I'd say over half I'd never heard of before, or I didn't know very much about them. I learned so much just flipping through and reading this little bit.
I'm glad this book exists, because just reading one of these stories offers so much hope to everyone, but especially to black women, who are still degraded and ignored in today's world. They need these stories, and honestly so does everyone else. We need more diversity and to learn their stories, because only through the sharing of information can we truly come to understand one another.
I hope I don't seem like I'm like "YES I NEEDED THIS" as much as any Black woman does, but more I want all people to read this so they understand what black women have faced and continue to face, and strive to make the world a better place for everyone.
There are forty women who get two pages, one of an amazing artwork, and one with a short biography explaining their background and how they were "bold leaders". Each woman deserves so much more. What's sad is that I'd say over half I'd never heard of before, or I didn't know very much about them. I learned so much just flipping through and reading this little bit.
I'm glad this book exists, because just reading one of these stories offers so much hope to everyone, but especially to black women, who are still degraded and ignored in today's world. They need these stories, and honestly so does everyone else. We need more diversity and to learn their stories, because only through the sharing of information can we truly come to understand one another.
I hope I don't seem like I'm like "YES I NEEDED THIS" as much as any Black woman does, but more I want all people to read this so they understand what black women have faced and continue to face, and strive to make the world a better place for everyone.
zellapaige's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
3.0
Both the concepts and (for the most part) content of this book are hopeful, important, and impactful. The execution of the book makes the overall reading experience fall seriously short though.Â
The illustrations are adorable, but after about 5 pages you start to realize that the faces of every girl are identical (some have added makeup or glasses, but the base features are all the same) only their clothing, background, and hair truly differ between illustrations. Even the two portraits that give a side profile are identical to each other and still share features with the other portraits. The author does address this in the introduction, saying "I designed them to be interchangeable because I want you, the reader, to see yourself in any one of them". This is a lovely sentiment that would still be possible to accomplish without literally copying/pasting the same face between the images. The identical faces also don't read as illustrations you can picture yourself in, they read as lazy. And flipping between pages with identical faces gets a bit creepy almost as soon as you realize it.
My next complaints are all to do with formatting issues, and I think it is important to note that I read a digital copy of this book. The majority of my formatting complaints would not be a concern if I were reading this book as a physical copy. I do however think it is incredibly lazy on the publisher's part to release a book digitally without making a single edit to the manuscript's form that would actually adapt the book to the digital medium. I am also certain that is exactly what happened. No one ever tried to make the digital version of the book digital-friendly. All that aside, I had larger issues with the book's formatting. The text of the short biographies was too small for the pages they were on. There was copious dead space around the biographies that I assume was left for aesthetic reasons but could have been used to make the book more legible. The text of the biographies also used justified line formatting, but in many cases justifying made multiple lines at a time read as having no spaces at all. Not every biography had this issue, but at least 5 were extremely difficult to read because of the justified lines. All around, the book needed another round of edits.
Again, I did genuinely love the content of the book and I feel I learned a lot from it. But when you have a book like this, where so much of the book's impact is visual, it makes those glaring mistakes and poor choices so much more obvious.
The illustrations are adorable, but after about 5 pages you start to realize that the faces of every girl are identical (some have added makeup or glasses, but the base features are all the same) only their clothing, background, and hair truly differ between illustrations. Even the two portraits that give a side profile are identical to each other and still share features with the other portraits. The author does address this in the introduction, saying "I designed them to be interchangeable because I want you, the reader, to see yourself in any one of them". This is a lovely sentiment that would still be possible to accomplish without literally copying/pasting the same face between the images. The identical faces also don't read as illustrations you can picture yourself in, they read as lazy. And flipping between pages with identical faces gets a bit creepy almost as soon as you realize it.
My next complaints are all to do with formatting issues, and I think it is important to note that I read a digital copy of this book. The majority of my formatting complaints would not be a concern if I were reading this book as a physical copy. I do however think it is incredibly lazy on the publisher's part to release a book digitally without making a single edit to the manuscript's form that would actually adapt the book to the digital medium. I am also certain that is exactly what happened. No one ever tried to make the digital version of the book digital-friendly. All that aside, I had larger issues with the book's formatting. The text of the short biographies was too small for the pages they were on. There was copious dead space around the biographies that I assume was left for aesthetic reasons but could have been used to make the book more legible. The text of the biographies also used justified line formatting, but in many cases justifying made multiple lines at a time read as having no spaces at all. Not every biography had this issue, but at least 5 were extremely difficult to read because of the justified lines. All around, the book needed another round of edits.
Again, I did genuinely love the content of the book and I feel I learned a lot from it. But when you have a book like this, where so much of the book's impact is visual, it makes those glaring mistakes and poor choices so much more obvious.