This book arrived just as I had completed reading the previous collection with my little sister during the weekend; Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls did just what it promised… meaning that she was put to sleep right away. I think the historical aspect wasn’t quite there yet for my nine-year-old sister.
Still, I was ecstatic to hear the news of this follow-up book to come out. Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls 2 boasts a brand new graphic design, a glossary and 100 incredible new portraits created by the best female artists of our time.
I liked, in particular, the inclusion of new, contemporary women in this edition, since I had just finished my reading of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah, and here we have her familiar face featured!
But my main issue with Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls 2 stems from the fact that these summaries skip one too many significant details and it results in an inconsistent, half-hearted historical biography of these accomplished women.
I also feel like the book reduces the women’s accomplishment a tad by making their hard work sound like a breeze. Like, with Lilian Bland building her own plane, they make it sound like she snapped her fingers and boom there’s a plane: “Lilian read everything she could find by the Wright brothers and other famous aviators about how to build a plane. She succeeded in building a flyable biplane—an aircraft with two pairs of wings—then went on to build a full-scale glider, just like the one her boyfriend hadn’t let her fly.”
Putting my hindrances aside, I’d still like to share some of my favorite stories of these extraordinary women:
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JOHANNA NORDBLAD
ICE DIVER
This mentioned a film “made about one of her incredible dives,” and I was utterly hypnotized watching it. I had to replay the video over and over simply to wrap my mind around the scope and expansiveness of Nordblad’s chilling actions.
“It shows a solitary figure dragging a sled to the middle of a frozen lake, leaving a trail of footprints behind her in the snow. She cuts a triangle into the ice with a saw and sits on the edge. Taking a deep breath, she slips into the black water. A different universe unfolds around her: silver and deep blue-black, silent and beautiful. She swims along like a mermaid, at peace with the world.”
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J.K. ROWLING
WRITER
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BRENDA MILNER
NEUROPSYCHOLOGIST
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VIVIAN MAIER
PHOTOGRAPHER
I can’t stop staring at this utterly haunting painting.
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SKY BROWN
SKATEBOARDER
This nine-year-old skater is an inspiration.
I am, however, eternally perplexed at their notion of including a Nazi-born girl in this collection, because we should, of course, applaud a fish for swimming, instead of shining light on the many brave Jewish women to survive and oppose the terrors of the Holocaust…
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A band called “ASMR” was worth it all.
Bold artwork that shows itself in show-stopping panels like the above.
I highlighted the above because having Bina call someone out on their act by acknowledging the important distinction between being nice and appearing nice was grand.
He probably got fired from Del Taco because they got a new thing called FR E SH A VOCA DO.
And true to the comparison I presented at the start of my review with Vera Brosgol’s Be Prepared, this graphic novel ended on a sweet note for more and more.
You pretty much knew what to expect with this introducing letter:
“Dear mom, could you pick me up as soon as you get this? PLEASE! I’m desperate”