Book Review: Goodnight Stories For Rebel Girls by Elena Favilli & Francesca Cavallo

Bedtime Gets A Blast of (Lightened Up) Women’s History in ‘Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls’

I admire the exhaustive efforts, gutsy ambition and good intentions authors Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo put into this 200+ page coffee table sized non-fiction book. Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls commemorates 100 go-getter, boundary-pushing and history-making women from all across the globe.

It’s worth mentioning Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls was launched as an indie Kickstarter. Word of mouth and crowdsourcing is how Favilli and Cavallo gathered  enough funding to publish their book and take it from pet project to the big time. Favilli and Cavallo can hustle and they proved it by smashing website records on Kickstarter. Now Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls is widely available in libraries, book shops, and online.

The narrative structure in Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls riffs off of the traditional fairy tale/bedtime stories that’ve been read for generations. Each page is dedicated to a single woman and often begins with the classic “Once upon a time there was . . .” lead. Then proceeds to launch into a brief account of the woman’s childhood and later adult or teen years. The writing is extremely simplistic. The vocabulary isn’t tricky and the sentences aren’t long or wordy. A 7 or 8 year old child can easily read this book independently. Although reading it together or aloud is more in the spirit of Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls.  

Alongside the text there are full page richly coloured illustrations to accompany each woman’s page, drawn by one of 60 women artists hired specifically for this project. Some of the art is outlandishly funky, with sharp angles and garish colours. Other illustrations are more along the lines of traditional art with gentle pencil strokes and the soft smudges of charcoal, handled with precision. This art is so eye-catching and eclectic Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls is worth paging through for that alone.

However the specially selected quote to represent each woman is often placed awkwardly over the art and it’s very hard to read some of them. You can fill in the gaps on your own, but from first sight it’s not very pretty or accessible. The wonky placement ought to be adjusted.

One of my biggest qualms with Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls and what kept me from assigning it 4 stars or higher is the content is very selective. I don’t want to call it out as being dishonest, but some of the profiles are very skewed or focus only on the positive, ignoring other factors that aren’t so admirable or worth emulating. The bios are very brief and often glossed over and while not necessarily dumbed down, are painted in a very one-sided light. There are some downright questionable women featured here. Not only ones who’ve engaged in violent and criminal acts, but who’ve been otherwise shady or dabbling in some not so legal, not so cool things. Some of these women aren’t women to praise or idolize and I couldn’t help but cringe as I read their pages. There’s a bit of a political slant at times too, which while it wasn’t ham-fisted it was still very obvious.

I’m stunned that several incredible women weren’t featured in this colourful nonfiction tome. The ones who instantly come to mind? Mother Teresa, J.K. Rowling and Coretta Scott King. Not to mention Emma Watson. There a more than a few “young” women represented here, so why not Emma? Her work as a goodwill ambassador He For She is nothing to sneeze at.

There’s quite a spectrum of racial diversity here: many black, middle eastern and Latina women are featured, but there is a distinct lack of Asian women. What about the North Korean escapee and human rights activist Park Yeon-Mi? She speaks up against human trafficking and is part of organizations that help other North Koreans, who are hiding in China, to resettle in South Korea. Or how about Korean-American director Jennifer Yuh Nelson who was the second woman of ALL TIME nominated for Academy Award for Best Animated Feature AND was the first woman to direct a major Hollywood animated feature all on her own: Kung Fu Panda 2, and later on Kung Fu Panda 3 as well. Taiwanese-American actress Constance Wu is also absent. Wu has been one of the most vocal voices in calling out white-washing and demanding more diversity in mainstream media.

Instead of celebrating questionable politicians and even pirates for cripes sake, why couldn’t some of these women been included? Just as there are some women and girls who aren’t exactly, well, history-making or exceptional enough to be featured. Take for example a young trans school-girl --no she’s not activist and LGBTQ YoutTuber --Jazz Jennings  -- and a deaf athlete, not to mention obscure cyclists who could’ve been trimmed out to make room for some of the above women.

from giphy 

Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls isn’t a perfect book. Be wary of the carefully curated bios and the surface level facts the authors chose to share. Parents, friends, relatives or siblings can also take this and run with it and ask questions and give more explanations to young readers. It’s an opportunity to share more knowledge and to challenge what’s portrayed as the whole truth and nothing but the truth and take another point of view.  

The details are quite simplistic and the bios are glossed over, often one-dimensional peeks into the lives of the featured women. It’s women’s history lite. Younger readers will benefit most from the style and content here, while older readers can use the basic and watered down bios as a jumping off point to read more books and learn more about the women that especially interest them or resonate with them.

Despite the shortcomings explained above these stories do share stories about history-making women across generations and the globe. The phenomenal illustrations conjure up arresting and memorable snapshots of each of the 100 women and the bios, while selective, simplistic and often one-sided, can prod reluctant and young readers to open their mind to learning more about women’s history and be more aware of what’s going on in the world today gender-wise and generationally.

Along with being accessible for children (at the expense of having more of a basis in facts, ugly as some of they may be )it’s also fantastic that Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls doesn’t exclude male readers. Young boys can also enjoy this book and get something out of reading the mini stories about the women featured. In fact, I highly suggest parents DO read passages of this book to their sons, step-sons, nephews, or what have you. Don’t take the “for girls” part of the title so seriously. There’s nothing pink or frilly about this book.

While it’s not perfect, Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls  is a timely and much needed book to have in classrooms, libraries, bookshelves and book shops. Despite the shortcomings explained above these stories do share stories about history-making women across generations and the globe. The phenomenal illustrations conjure up arresting and memorable snapshots of each of the 100 women and the bios, while selective, simplistic and often one-sided, can prod reluctant and young readers to open their mind to learning more about women’s history and be more aware of what’s going on in the world today gender-wise and generationally. Encouraging young girls to turn their sweet dreams into realities, Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls celebrates the power of taking chances, resiliency, and standing out from the crowd. Unlike the poofy and all glitter no substance princess stories, Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls doesn’t gush about stereotypical characters defined solely by the beauty and femininity.

Recommended? YES. There are some troubling and questionable women featured but for the most part, the art combined with the bios is a tour de force for middle grade non fiction.

This review ONLY refers to Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls not the second volume.

First image is the cover; second image a screenshot from Amazon Kindle.