View source for Fantastically Great Women Who Made History by Kate Pankhurst

{{infobox1 
|title=Fantastically Great Women Who Made History
|author=Kate Pankhurst
|reviewer=Jill Murphy
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Lovely picture book telling the stories of inspirational women from history. Vivid, lively illustrations and inspirational text will make for a brilliant and motivational book for sharing.
|rating=5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=32
|publisher=Bloomsbury
|date=February 2018
|isbn=1408878909 
|cover=Pankhurst_Women
|aznuk=1408878909
|aznus=1408878909
}}

A lot of history is about men. Kings and generals and inventors and politicians. Sometimes, it feels almost as though there were no women in history at all, let alone ones young girls might like to read about or regard as role models. Of course, this isn't true and there are plenty of women who, throughout history, have achieved amazing things or shown incredible bravery, or created something never seen before. So here, in this wonderful picture book from Kate Pankhurst, are the stories of some of them.

There's Flora Drummond, a suffragette from Manchester who invaded 10 Downing Street and marched - yes, marched! on Scotland. There's Qiu Jin, who campaigned against the practice of foot binding in China and wrote poems that are still read today. There's Noor Inayat Khan, who was the first female radio operator in Nazi-occupied France during WWII and who remained in her post for five whole months before being captured. The average time for a man was just six weeks. And did you know that Frankenstein author Mary Shelley was the daughter of early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft? You do now.

''Fantastically Great Women Who Made History'' will be such a lovely book to share. It's bright and bold and busy and there is so much going on on every page that it might take some time to get the text. The illustrations are wonderfully quirky but also detailed - follow the tracks of the Underground Railroad and check out all the different wanted posters on Harriet Tubman's pages; don't let the skeleton put you off reading the book spines while you're learning about Dr Elizabeth Blackwell. It's a delight to look at, this book, it really is.

There's just enough text to read aloud without getting bored - and how could you get bored with the first woman in space or a real life pirate queen? The vocabulary is quite stretching but, in a nice touch, some of the more difficult words are in a glossary at the back - algorithm, fugitive, evacuate. It's even called ''fantastically great words''. And they are!I like the idea of little girls remembering these words and then using them, leaving a line of impressed aunties in their wake. We all need good words.

All in all, ''Fantastically Great Women Who Made History'' is exactly the kind of book I would have loved as a child. It's interesting and motivational and it stretches vocabulary. It packs an enormous amount of information into a very few pages. But mostly, it's cheerful and positive and generous. It wills its readers on in the best of ways.

Recommended.

[[Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World by Rachel Ignotofsky]] is another fabulous book about female pioneers. And there's also [[10 Things I Can Do To Help My World by Melanie Walsh]], a practical and motivational introduction to environmentalism for the youngest readers.

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[[Category:Confident Readers]]
[[Category:Children's Non-Fiction]]