Fight Like a Girl: 50 Feminists Who Changed the World

Gr 8 Up—This title achieves a snappy portrayal of feminist history by focusing on 50 world-changing feminists. Barcella uses each minibiography as a place to define and explore the many ways people practice feminism. The list includes trans, black, Middle Eastern, Native American, and other women from across history (though it's light on Latina and Asian women), covering the arts, politics, sports, science, and other disciplines. Barcella examines both "big-name" feminists and lesser-known women. Similar in format to a zine, this work has a conversational tone that doesn't shy away from swear words or movement vocabulary. For each woman, there is a claim to fame listed that is in relation to her career and country of origin, followed by a couple of paragraphs on her life and legacy, ending with "Cool Credentials" (bullet points with some highlights from her life) and "Quotables" (a few quotes by the person profiled). The art and graphics are irregular; most of the women profiled get their own line-drawn portrait, a few receive only a drawing representing some aspect of their life, and some get nothing at all. The bibliography is immense but serves as the only back matter to this volume. The book could have benefitted from a glossary in the front, as it explains terms (such as intersectional feminism and Marxism) as they come up, but a framework for the terms used often (oppression) could have been valuable. This is a good selection for teens who like MTV's Decoded or BuzzFeed lists or who, like the author, are inspired by rallies and social justice heroes.