Hooray for Women!

The prolific Williams celebrates lauded historical women in her latest comic strip-style book. Sixteen luminaries—including Mae Jemison, Wangari Maathai, and Mary Wollstonecraft—receive dedicated strips, while pages at the back gather women “leaders & world changers,” “athletes & creatives,” and “scientists, pioneers, & adventurers.” (Women from the U.K., Commonwealth of Nations, and U.S. dominate.) In the vertical margins, Williams shares factoids both pertinent (“The first woman in space was Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, in 1963”) and tangential (“In space, a sneeze can send you flying backward”), while two characters (Dot and Abe) offer a running commentary. The irreverent tone (Queen Elizabeth’s tomb is inscribed, “Not bad for a girl, huh, Daddy?”) can sometimes misfire, and readers may wince at some inclusions, especially Sheryl Sandberg’s quote suggesting that “until women are as ambitious as men, they’re not going to achieve as much as men.” Ages 8–12. [em](Aug.) [/em]