Brazen

Starred review from February 1, 2018

Gr 8 Up-French cartoonist Bagieu (Exquisite Corpse; California Dreamin') offers 29 compelling biographies of renowned female artists, scientists, athletes, explorers, activists, and warriors. While much-profiled women such as reporter Nellie Bly and astronaut Mae Jemison appear here, so do less recognized names, including pioneering gynecologist Agnodice (active around 350 BCE in Athens); Christine Jorgensen, one of the first people from the United States to receive gender reassignment surgery; Liberian social worker Leymah Gbowee; and Syrian aristocrat-turned-activist Naziq al-Abid. Each entry covers the subject's life from birth to period of activity and, where applicable, death, across about six pages of delicately drawn panels with colorful highlights and washes. The work features humorously anachronistic props, such as modern books, as well as accurate depictions (smoking, drinking). The minimal dialogue is largely invented; declarations and thoughts are couched in distinctly 21st-century argot. The women range in age from girls to older adults at their high points of recognition and are geographically diverse. There are no source notes, but there's enough information, including dates, national origin, and married as well as birth surnames, to spur curious teens to seek out more details. VERDICT A strikingly original collective biography for casual readers, students, and those looking for inspiration in their own lives.-Francisca Goldsmith, Library Ronin, Worcester, MA

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 15, 2018
Story collections about famous women often include figures like Joan of Arc and Florence Nightingale. Bagieu (California Dreamin’) goes further afield, creating short graphic biographies about inspiring women from many unexpected times and places, such as Las Mariposas, sisters from the Dominican Republic who worked to overthrow dictator Rafael Trujillo; Katia Krafft, who fought to be recognized as a volcanologist; and Leyah Gbowee, an organizer whose part in ending the civil war in Liberia won her the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. (“How about a drink?” Liberian negotiators say to Gbowee. “I don’t drink with murderers,” she snaps.) Bagieu’s writing is sly and understated, and her panels combine impish comedy with unexpected moments of sensuousness. The women in these biographies pursue political freedom, love, artistic fulfillment, and—sometimes—the joy of their own bodies: Peggy Guggenheim mourns the death of her lover John Holms “on the shoulders of (lots of) new lovers.” Any one of these stories would make a rousing picture book biography; 29 of them in one volume produces a work whose energy and wit will spur readers to get going and change the world. Ages 14–up.