Illustrator: Rebecca Guay
Title:Bad Girls: Sirens, Jezebels, Murderesses, Thieves, & Other Female Villains
Title:Bad Girls: Sirens, Jezebels, Murderesses, Thieves, & Other Female Villains
Publication: February 1, 2013
Publisher: Charlesbridge Publishing
Genre: Illustrated, Historical, Biography
Pages: 172
Audience: 10 and up
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Source: Public Library
Synopsis (from the Amazon.com):
Meet twenty-six of history's most notorious women. Each bad girl has a rotten reputation, but there are two sides to every tale. Decide whether Tituba was really a conspiring witch or just a humble housemaid. Analyze the evidence stacked for and against Lizzie Borden. And what made the brazen Cleopatra so dishonorable . . . or honorable? Each chapter ends with comic panels featuring caricatures of the authors discussing the women, with Heidi arguing as the prosecution and Jane arguing for context.
Meet twenty-six of history's most notorious women. Each bad girl has a rotten reputation, but there are two sides to every tale. Decide whether Tituba was really a conspiring witch or just a humble housemaid. Analyze the evidence stacked for and against Lizzie Borden. And what made the brazen Cleopatra so dishonorable . . . or honorable? Each chapter ends with comic panels featuring caricatures of the authors discussing the women, with Heidi arguing as the prosecution and Jane arguing for context.
My thoughts:
I picked this book up from the library thinking it was something different. I thought the book would have a comic strip about the lady in question and explain how she was considered a bad girl. Instead, this book introduces a woman from history, gives a quick synopsis of her life and why she is considered a bad girl. The comic strip at the end is an illustration of the authors conducting "research" and arguing if the woman was truly bad or not. My undergraduate degree was in history, specifically focusing on women, so I knew most of the women in the book, but there were a few I had never heard of. So I did learn a couple of new things from this book. It was not a bad read. If you know someone who is interested in women's history then this may be a cute, quick read for them. I would suggest it to a middle school aged kid (particularly girls) to maybe help pique an interest in history.
I picked this book up from the library thinking it was something different. I thought the book would have a comic strip about the lady in question and explain how she was considered a bad girl. Instead, this book introduces a woman from history, gives a quick synopsis of her life and why she is considered a bad girl. The comic strip at the end is an illustration of the authors conducting "research" and arguing if the woman was truly bad or not. My undergraduate degree was in history, specifically focusing on women, so I knew most of the women in the book, but there were a few I had never heard of. So I did learn a couple of new things from this book. It was not a bad read. If you know someone who is interested in women's history then this may be a cute, quick read for them. I would suggest it to a middle school aged kid (particularly girls) to maybe help pique an interest in history.
