Gr 3--7--The 52 women featured in this book are described as "adventurers the history books forgot about." The subjects are grouped into six categories: artists, pioneers, scientists, activists, athletes, and adventure seekers. Some, such as Joan of Arc, Amelia Earhart, and Sacagawea, will be familiar to readers, while others are less widely known, such as Teuta, a pirate queen who challenged the Romans; Nalini Nadkarni, who trained as a dancer and later became a scientist studying rain forests; and opera singer Alexandra David-Néel, who explored the Tibetan city of Lhasa in the 1920s. The subjects are fascinating, and the women come from a variety of time periods, geographic regions, socioeconomic backgrounds, and ethnicities and include women with disabilities. Yet they all shared common characteristics: the need for adventure and a desire to learn. The book also contains portraits of the women, a glossary, and information about Indigenous peoples and the world's ever-changing political boundaries. VERDICT This colorful, delightful book is highly recommended for all history and women's history collections.--Patricia Ann Owens, formerly at Illinois Eastern Community College, Mt. Carmel

Brief biographies of 52 intrepid women, spanning the globe and all centuries, are flanked by large, full-color illustrations and by maps that show the women's adventuring sites.The introduction sets up the idea that the book has been written by, for, and about human femalesa bit unfortunate. The claim that these are women whom "the history books forgot about" is mostly true (Sacagawea, Joan of Arc, and Amelia Earhart are outliers) and explains why such noteworthy figures as Rosa Parks and Malala Yousafzai are just names at the bottom of the pages about Bessie Coleman and Nujeen Mustafa, respectively. Although the introduction suggests that being an adventurer is not related to monetary wealth, a good number of the women are from privileged backgrounds. The thoughtful glossary and endnotesand the biographies themselveshelp explain this. The artwork, reminiscent of art deco travel posters, is a gorgeous complement to the eclectic curation. The biographies are written in a conversational style, often including a short quote from the subject. The idea of adventuring is deliberately loose, with the biographies organized under categories of artists, pioneers, scientists, activists, athletes, and seekers. The tales range from being inspirational (most of them) to creepy (pirate queen Teuta had a Roman ambassador killed because he annoyed her) to weird (Manon Ossevoort drove a tractor to the South Pole in 2004). All are fun to read.An exciting labor of lovefor kids of all gender identities. (Collective biography. 8-12) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

This collection presents single-page but surprisingly detailed accounts of more than 50 notable women. Entries are divided into six categories: artists (writers, painters, photographers); pioneers (women who have blazed trails, from a nineteenth-century Canadian fur trapper to a present-day safari guide in Kenya); scientists (ecologists, astronauts, paleontologists); activists (possibly the most diverse group, encompassing Joan of Arc, aviator Bessie Coleman, Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich, and The Body Shop founder Anita Roddick, among others); athletes (the group that includes the titular freediver Kimi Werner); and seekers (women on quests, whether through Amazon rain forests, across Australian deserts, or into the forbidden city of Lhasa). The essays are engaging, and in addition to providing basic biographical information, effectively connect each woman with her designated category. Brightly colored digital-media portraits face each page of text, and double-page maps pinpoint each subject's country of origin. Truly international in scope and ranging across centuries (but without source notes or bibliography, alas), this attractive collection should spark inquiry for further research.--Kathleen McBroom Copyright 2010 Booklist