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A review by katymul
The Girl Who Could Fix Anything: Beatrice Shilling, World War II Engineer by Mara Rockliff
adventurous
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
3.75
While I appreciate the format of biographical picturebooks tends toward this pattern of focusing on the whole life of the subject, I think a little more focus here would have made me love the book more. I enjoyed it a lot! I just wish we'd gotten more details about the engineering breakthroughs and a little less on the schooling journey (that seems typical for now if not for the period, which is hard to really capture). But it does well overall -- informative and a bit quiet, with one really cool engineering "solve" covered at the end.
That said, the illustrations did a great job of introducing bits of intersectionality -- that's right, this book does not commit the common sin of white feminism by making gender the only struggle for acceptance by the old boys clubs. Or of implying that only white people were active and significant in historical events before the Civil Rights Movement. It's not a focus of the text or even of the illustrations, but it deepens the issues addressed to show other students and engineers struggling for respect for different reasons than Beatrice Shilling. Very well done.
That said, the illustrations did a great job of introducing bits of intersectionality -- that's right, this book does not commit the common sin of white feminism by making gender the only struggle for acceptance by the old boys clubs. Or of implying that only white people were active and significant in historical events before the Civil Rights Movement. It's not a focus of the text or even of the illustrations, but it deepens the issues addressed to show other students and engineers struggling for respect for different reasons than Beatrice Shilling. Very well done.