Good Girls Don’t Make History

In one fictional vignette of this nonfiction graphic novel, a modern-day girl’s complaint about the length of a voting line results in her mother replying, “It took nearly 100 years to get this right.” Flashing back to the past, the narrative centers Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organizing the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, the founding meeting of the women’s rights movement in the U.S. Kiehner, Olwell, and Coyle highlight oft-told dramatic moments in the history of women’s suffrage activism, from the 1840s through the 1920 ratification of the 19th Amendment, prohibiting sex-based voting discrimination. The narrative focuses largely on well-known white women such as Susan B. Anthony, Victoria Woodhull, Inez Milholland, and Alice Paul, as well as several portraits of Black women’s suffrage activists, such as Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Sojourner Truth, and Ida B. Wells. Luscious illustrations by Dawn present a rich range of expressions and dynamic angles. Unfortunately, the book upholds a tired narrative of white women’s suffrage activism, failing to point out the large degree of racism and white supremacy present within the movement, and eliding the many significant contributions of Black women, such as Ida B. Wells’s founding of the Alpha Suffrage Club. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 12–up. (Aug.)