Comments for Bad Girls: Sirens, Jezebels, Murderesses, Thieves, & Other Female Villains

Bad Girls: Sirens, Jezebels, Murderesses, Thieves, & Other Female Villains: 05/22/14

Bad Girls: Sirens, Jezebels, Murderesses, Thieves, & Other Female Villains by Jane Yolen and Heidi E. Y. Stemple is a hybrid nonfiction / graphic novel survey of women who have for one reason or another been deemed bad by history or culture.

The book opens with short summaries of Bible stories, presenting each one as a drawn portrait, a one or two page mini-biography, and a one page, multi-panel comic where the mother (Yolen) and daughter (Stemple) discuss the woman, questioning her portrayal. They also bring up any modern day lessons that might be drawn from her "crime."

The book then moves on to historical figures like Cleopatra, "Typhoid" Mary, and Mae West, for example. Between each of these essays the two authors travel the globe in search of some feminist truth, even if they rarely agree on whatever they've learned most recently.

As both a Jane Yolen aficionado, and a graphic novel reader, I loved this unusual hybrid. I think it will be a good place to start my own dialog on gender roles and feminism with my children.

Five stars

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