Book Review: Rad Women Worldwide by Kate Schatz and Miriam Klein Stahl

Publisher’s description

From the authors of the New York Times bestselling book Rad American Women A-Z, comes a bold new collection of 40 biographical profiles, each accompanied by a striking illustrated portrait, showcasing extraordinary women from around the world.

In Rad Women Worldwide, writer Kate Schatz and artist Miriam Klein Stahl tell fresh, engaging, and inspiring tales of perseverance and radical success by pairing well researched and riveting biographies with powerful and expressive cut-paper portraits. Featuring an array of diverse figures from Hatshepsut (the great female king who ruled Egypt peacefully for two decades) and Malala Yousafzi (the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize) to Poly Styrene (legendary teenage punk and lead singer of X-Ray Spex) and Liv Arnesen and Ann Bancroft (polar explorers and the first women to cross Antarctica), this progressive and visually arresting book is a compelling addition to women’s history.

Amanda’s thoughts

I’m going to crib from my review of their previous book, Rad American Women A-Z, because the same sentiment applies here:

“Please go buy this book. Buy it for your library, your classroom, your kids, your friends’ kids, your neighbors, yourself. Maybe, just to be safe, buy like 10 copies, so you have plenty to hand out for gifts. This book would make a great graduation present, a birthday present for kids of all ages, and a great gift for your adult friends, too.”

Just as you would expect, this book tells about “the lives and accomplishments of bold, brave women who lived awesome, exciting, revolutionary, historic, and world-changing lives” (as the introduction tells us). Some of the women are more well-known than others. Many of the women I already knew about thanks to an extremely extensive education in college while getting my women’s studies degree. Even though college was now 20 years ago, so many of their stories have stuck with me specifically because I never heard about their lives anywhere except my women’s studies classes. 40 women from 30 countries are highlighted. Readers will kick off their education by learning about Enheduanna (2285-2250 BCE, Mesopotamia), the world’s oldest known author. From there we jump all over the place, both in time and location. We learn about Kalpana Chawla, an Indian astronaut; Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s ardent supporter of democracy and peace; Qiu Jin, China’s revolutionary leader known as the “Chinese Joan of Arc;” Fe Del Mundo, from the Philippines, the first woman admitted to Harvard Medical School; Kasha Jacqueline Nagabasera, the “Mother of the Gay Rights Movement” in Uganda; feminist and Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; Colombian street artist Bastardilla; punk singer Poly Styrene from the band X-Ray Spex (I wouldn’t be much of a punk if this wasn’t one of my favorite songs from my youth); and the Argentinian activist group Madres de la Plaza de Mayo (who I had the honor to hear speak back in the mid-90s). Those are just some of the phenomenal women included in this book. These women, and the other women written about, are many things: musicians, athletes, rulers, spies, activists, leaders, explorers, linguists, fighters, healers, educators, scientists, programmers, and more. The end of the book includes a list of 250 more rad women from around the world to check out. The bold, bright paper-cut art is dynamic and makes this already extremely appealing book even more likely to get noticed on a shelf. An excellent overview of many important women and a fantastic addition to any collection.

Review copy courtesy of the authors

ISBN-13: 9780399578861

Publisher: Potter/TenSpeed/Harmony

Publication date: 09/27/2016

Filed under: Book Reviews