HERSTORY: 50 Women and Girls Who Shook Up the World written by Katherine Halligan and illustrated by Sarah Walsh is a brilliant collection of women from all over the world who have made a positive impact on civilization. The arc of time reaches back to Egyptian mathematician Hypatia born in 360 AD and spans the lives of 50 women right up to contemporary Malala Yousafzai who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for her courageous fight for girls’ rights to get an education. It’s a fascinating timeframe.
The organization of this outstanding book revolves around five groupings: Believe and Lead, Imagine and Create, Help and Heal, Think and Solve and Hope and Overcome.
Women who we hear of frequently such as artist Frida Kahlo, activist and writer Helen Keller and civil rights activist Rosa Parks to women we hear of occasionally such as biologist and ecologist Rachel Carson, educator Maria Montessori and NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson to women we hear of infrequently such as scientist Rosalind Franklin who discovered the structure of DNA, Ada Lovelace, whose early ideas led to the future possibility of computer codes and environmentalist Wangari Maathai are all included.
The 50 stories from Elizabeth I to Anne Frank are beautifully-illustrated with portraits, drawings of artifacts, quotations and images from each life that will engage readers. Each page is full of visual energy. The author has included a beautiful introduction to this book, a timeline and a useful glossary.
HERSTORY: 50 Women and Girls Who Shook Up the World written by Katherine Halligan and illustrated by Sarah Walsh is a big, bright gift of information and encouragement for readers 10 and Up (Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2018).
Questions and Activities for HERSTORY: 50 Women and Girls Who Shook Up the World
There are quotations attributed to most of the women in this book. Look through the book again and find those quotations to which you are most drawn. This will take a considerable amount of time. As you find them write them down on a piece of paper. When you are done select one from your list that particularly speaks to you and make a poster with that quotation on it for your bedroom. You can visit your list of “words to live by” and make more posters as you desire.
Now that you have read the book, can you identify the women on the striking cover? Study the cultural details of their clothing as well as other details such as a flag, a bird, a plane and a mathematical equation. Then hunt for these women in the book’s illustrations. If you were to design this cover which women would you include? Why?
Both Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan are featured in this book in the “help and heal” section. Read the biographical material pertaining to both women and think about how they mutually helped and healed each other and how their collaboration benefited the greater good.
